A trio of streetcar companies provided service along a single 10-mile line from the Washington, D.C., neighborhood of Georgetown northward and ultimately to Rockville, Maryland, from 1890 to the early decades of the 20th century.
[1] Several years later, the Tennallytown and Rockville Railway, or T&R, opened service from the G&T's northern terminus to the community of Bethesda, Maryland.
Ultimately, it ran through the D.C. neighborhood of Friendship Heights and terminated just over the Maryland state border at Wisconsin and Willard Avenues.
The second story of the wood-frame building held a transfer table and three tracks that emerged from the north elevation of the barn.
Beall, who owned or co-owned some 1,000 acres of land along the future streetcar tracks, anointed himself president of the new line.
He also purchased controlling interest in the Georgetown and Rockville Turnpike Company to ease the right-of-way negotiations.
Starting on July 10, 1891,[7] the Glen Echo provided service due west to the intersection of Conduit (today's Macarthur Boulevard) and Walhonding Roads.
[12] A new line was later built from the Circle through the town of Somerset to the Conduit-Walhonding station, resulting in a new crossing of the T&R about a quarter-mile north of the Wisconsin-Willard terminal.
[12][13] In early 1893, the T&R double-tracked its line and, building on the close corporate ties with the G&T, began operating through service between Georgetown and Bethesda Park.
[17] By 1900, the tracks were complete from (the now-defunct) Bethesda Park to Courthouse Square in Rockville, but officials of the town refused to let streetcars begin running until the company had fulfilled its agreement to lay tracks to the Woodlawn Hotel, nearly a mile away in the westernmost section of town.
A newspaper account said the purchase was "for the Georgetown and Tennallytown Railway",[14] but it was part of the consolidation into the Washington Traction.
In 1897, Crosby transferred all of the T&R property, except the Bethesda Park site, into his new Washington and Rockville Railway Company.
Citizens of the D.C. neighborhood of Friendship Heights and the Montgomery County municipalities of Drummond and Somerset complained to the Interstate Commerce Commission, arguing that the hike was unjust and unreasonable under ICC rules.
[26] In 1908, a car barn was built by Samuel J. Prescott & Co. to service streetcars at 5230 Wisconsin Avenue, two blocks inside D.C.