The Chesapeake Beach Railway (CBR), now defunct, was an American railroad of southern Maryland and Washington, D.C., built in the 19th century.
It served Washington and Chesapeake Beach for almost 35 years, but closed amid the Great Depression and the rise of the automobile.
Their Chesapeake Beach, Maryland, resort was to be a vacation spot for the rich and middle class alike, with two grand hotels, a boardwalk, racetrack, and amusements.
A pier would accommodate Chesapeake Bay excursion steamers from Baltimore, Annapolis, and Eastern Shore points.
He started construction in October 1897 at the B&O Railroad's Alexandria branch north of present-day Deane Avenue between Benning and Kenilworth.
[5] Mears optimistically anticipated that the railroad would be completed by July 1898—though before it could open, a draw span bridge would have to be built over the Patuxent River below Bristol to permit steamboat traffic.
[6] The CBR entered into successful agreements with the B&O to extend service from their Hyattsville station on the Washington Branch and then along the Alexandria Branch for four miles to Chesapeake Junction, located in today's Deanwood neighborhood where current-day Minnesota Avenue NE and Nannie Helen Burroughs Avenue NE.
As part of the contract, B&O built a separate siding in front of its Hyattsville station for CB trains to lay over.
[3][7] In April 1900, the Washington Traction & Electric Company extended the old Columbia H Street car line to Seat Pleasant, connecting with the Chesapeake Beach at the extreme eastern corner of the District.
It exited D.C. at Seat Pleasant, where it met with the Washington, Baltimore and Annapolis Electric Railway at a stop called District Line.
Later it was inherited by Potomac Electric Power Company and progressively expanded over the years as the city's major generating plant.
[4] In the early years, the fare for the round trip train ride from District Line station to Chesapeake Beach was 50 cents (approximately equivalent to $15 in 2017[8]).
When the SMR emerged from bankruptcy in 1901 as the Washington, Potomac & Chesapeake Railway (WP&CR) it sued the CBR in 1902, claiming they still owned the railbed.
The destruction of the luxurious Belvedere Hotel by a fire which originally started at Klein's Bakery two blocks away on March 30, 1923, further limited business.
[14] A hurricane in 1933 irreparably damaged the resort's facilities, and the subsequent loss of business led to foreclosure and a request for abandonment in 1935.
PEPCO needed coal delivered to its Benning Road Plant from Chesapeake Junction, the interchange with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
During the late 1930s and early 1940s operations changed with EWR's two secondhand 4-4-0 locomotives switching the hoppers the three blocks between the B&O and Capital Transit.
[19] In 1975 the power plant converted to oil to meet District environmental regulations which resulted in the demise of the East Washington Railway as PEPCO accounted for 97% of their revenue.
[16] In 1978, the railroad, which by then was down to four employees from 10, and a single Whitcomb ceased operations after successfully overcoming a protest of their abandonment by a liquor warehouse owner.
It was purchased by the East Washington Railway in April 1968 and sold to Union Equity Grain in Pasadena, Texas, in January 1970.