Most of the rail was constructed by the Southern Maryland Railroad, which also built a section of track in East Washington that was intended to connect with this line but never did.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the section from Hughesville to Cedar Point was abandoned and removed, and this area has since been repurposed for a highway, roads, a utility corridor, and a bike trail.

[10] The WC&PL also broke ground on its rail line to Point Lookout in 1881 and, like the SMR, it started at a connection with the Baltimore and Potomac at Brandywine.

Years later when it became clear that the endeavor was hopeless the rails and ties, which had sat in piles in Brandywine, were reallocated to the building of the Chesapeake Beach Railway.

[13] Over the next couple of years the SMR graded the railroad all the way to Esperanza (located on the Patuxent just downstream from the current Governor Thomas Johnson Bridge) and laid track to Mechanicsville.

[27] The WC&PL continued as an entity, owning land in the District of Columbia as late as 1935, but it was done running trains or building rail.

The W&P was unable to expand the rail line in any direction due to lack of funding and a constant need to extend the deadline to complete the road to Point Lookout.

[28] After their attempt to get an extension on the deadline was killed by the Maryland House in March of 1900, the Union Trust Company foreclosed on the railroad, it was put in receivership and then forcibly auctioned off on the steps of courthouse in Upper Marlboro in July for $100,000.

[31] But the group that secured the company in 1901, composed of Philadelphia capitalists called their corporation the Washington, Potomac & Chesapeake Railway(WP&CR).

[32] John P. Poe, a lawyer, represented parties in several cases involving the rail line and eventually became a director of the WP&CR.

[33] They quickly set to exerting their control over the tracks the SMR had built in the District, beginning ejectment hearings against the Chesapeake Beach Railway in 1902.

[45] When that failed, Rep. Syd Mudd had the government cancel the contracts to buy the scrap metal from the new owners and had the court intervene to prevent their removal.

[43] By 1920, the struggling WB&PL was unable to make payments on the principle of its loan to the federal government and quit paying interest in 1932, despite being exempt from state taxes.

However "the perseverance and personal sacrifice of the management and stockholders" along with the forbearance of the federal government and other lenders allowed them to keep operating through the Great Depression and increased competition from trucking.

[57] In 1940, the railroad had to stop running trains between Mechanicsville and Forrest Hall because of poor maintenance and later that year it sought, and received, permission to abandon that segment.

[57][56][59] The United States Navy put the railroad to use moving the vast amount of equipment needed to build and support Patuxent River Naval Air Station, the Cedar Point facility where the service's aeronautics bureau had consolidated its aviation testing programs.

By 1952, the Navy had 55 miles of track, three diesel locomotives, and three dozen railcars delivering gasoline, coal, ammunition and airplane parts.

The last train ran from Patuxent NAS to Hollywood on June 30, 1954, carrying employees, family members, troops, and the station's band playing music.

[55] In 1962, the Pennsy built a spur off of the line from the north side of Hughesville to the new Chalk Point Generating Station to deliver coal, bringing renewed value to the northern 11.5 miles of track.

[55][72] When train operation ceased on the section from Hughesville to Patuxent, it was offered for sale by the GSA, and St. Mary's County moved quickly to obtain the option to purchase it.

[73] On June 26, 1970, the St. Mary's County Commissioners purchased 28 miles of the abandoned right-of-way from Hughesville to Patuxent River for a utility corridor.

The State Roads Commission had been trying to acquire part of the ROW for use expanding SR-235 since 1959, and when the county purchased it in 1970, the SRC got the right to use whatever portions it needed in exchange for financing the replacement of the lost section of utility corridor.

[76] In the late 20th century, the county sold numerous easements across the right-of-way to adjacent landowners and beneath 2.5 miles of it to the Washington Gas Light Company.