Metropolitan Railroad

[3] In that same year it bought the Union Railroad Company, whose charter of January 19, 1872, enabled the Metropolitan to build a line from downtown D.C. to Georgetown.

The Metropolitan fulfilled about half of this, running tracks on Boundary, then north on Georgia to Rock Creek Church Road NW.

The first horsecars ran on this line in April 1873[5] but only as far north as P Street,[4] and presently the city paved over the tracks between P and Boundary.

On October 18, 1888, the day after electric streetcar operations began in Washington, Congress authorized the Brightwood Railway to purchase and electrify the Metropolitan's line and to extend it to the District boundary at Silver Spring.

[4][6] In 1890, as the city's streetcars switched to electric and mechanical power, the Metropolitan experimented with batteries but found them unsatisfactory.

On August 2, 1894, Congress ordered the Metropolitan to switch to an underground electrical power system pioneered in Budapest, Hungary.

[9] In 1895, Metropolitan built a massive, Romanesque-style car barn on the corner of 4th and P Streets SW.[10] But the railroad was in trouble, beset by a prolonged labor strike and saddled with a reputation for poor service.

[11] The Metropolitan switched the rest of its system to electric power on July 7, 1896,[1] which proved a big year for the company.

[1] It extended service along East Capitol Street to 15th Street and built the East Capitol Street Car Barn, a Romanesque Revival-style building designed by Waddy Wood, to serve as a barn, repair shop, and administrative offices (photo);[12] An Act of Congress passed on February 27, 1897, allowed the Metropolitan to extend its Connecticut Avenue line northeast on Columbia Road, then north-northwest on Mount Pleasant Road to Park Road.