Washington, Alexandria, and Mount Vernon Electric Railway | trolleybus stop, defunct railways

 trolleybus stop, historical layer / disappeared object, defunct railways

The Washington, Alexandria, and Mount Vernon Electric Railway began operating between Alexandria and Mount Vernon in 1892.

By 1906, the railway had transported 1,743,734 passengers along its routes with 92 daily trains. During World War I, the line was extended to Camp Humphreys (now Fort Belvoir).

In 1913, the Washington, Alexandria, and Mount Vernon Electric Railway merged with the Washington, Arlington & Falls Church Railway to form the Washington-Virginia Railway. The trolley company went into receivership in 1923 when buses became the dominant form of local public transportation (see: History of surface transit in Northern Virginia).

In 1927, the two railways were separated and sold at auction. The last trolleys of the line ran on January 18, 1932. Later that year the tracks were removed when some of the right-of-way was used for the George Washington Memorial Parkway. The path of the trolley turnaround at Mount Vernon remains as a traffic circle at the south end of the Parkway, while the former rail yard in southern Arlington now serves as a Metrobus yard.