The following is based on information conatined in
"Every Hour On The Hour: A chornicle of the Washington, Baltimore
and Annapolis Electric Railroad"by John E. Merriken
published in 1993 by Leroy O. King, Sr.
4815 Allencrest
Dallas, TX, 75244
as Bulletin 130 of the
Central Electric Railfans' Association.
In May of 1901, by authority of Article 6, Chapter 307 of the Maryland Acts of 1900, three men from Cleveland - W. H. Lamprecht, F. N. Wilcox and James Christy Jr. - purchased the rights for the Potomac and Severn Electric Railway , a road that was chartered on May 22, 1899, but which was never built.
Under the authoritiy of the Acts of 1900, the newly formed railroad was promptly renamed the Washington and Annapolis Electric Railway, a takeoff on the name of the original road. Bythe summer of 1901 the surveyors and engineers had laid out a route that was nearly a straight line from the easternmost corner of Washington, D.C. to Westport at the southwest limits of Baltimore, In laying out the rout of the W&A the surveyors crossed the tracks of the Annapolis Washington & Baltimore (a steam road like its predecessor, the Annapolis and Elk Ridge Rail Road). This corssing occured at what the surveyors called Station 954 + 87.3, which was at a point 18.082 miles from milepost 0 (Washington). The surveyors at the time called the intersection Naval Academy Junction, a name which would last through out the life of the WB&A. For the Annapolis division of the railroad [it was named thw Washington and Annapolis, after all!] the W&A, on February 26, 1903, purchased the entire capital stock of the Annapolis Washington and Baltimore from the AW&B's parent company, the Baltimore and Annaplis Short Line Rail Road. The AW&B was finally deeded to the WB&A by formal purchase on December 16, 1908.
It is the route of the former AW&B in which we are interested; it is, in fact, this route that is discussed in Bulletin 61 of the Union Switch & Signal Company of Swissvale, Pennsylvania.
Below are thumbnail images of the aforementioned Bulletin 61, from front cover to back. Simply click on a thumbnail image and the full-size image will appear in a new window.
Sadly, there are no captions for the pictures, so unless the text mentions a location, these useful facts - like the WB&A itself - are gone forever.
Remember, the pages will open in separate windows.
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