Washington & Old Dominion Railroad Regional Park
The Washington & Old Dominion Railroad Regional Park is a popular and unusually-shaped regional park in Northern Virginia. The park's primary feature is the Washington & Old Dominion Railroad Trail (abbreviated as W&OD Trail), an asphalt-surfaced paved rail trail that runs through densely populated urban and suburban communities as well as through rural areas. Most of the trail travels on top of the rail bed of the former Washington and Old Dominion Railroad, which closed in 1968.
Although the park is 44.8 miles (72.1 km) long, it is only about 100 feet (30 m) wide. The rail trail is approximately 10 feet (3.0 m) wide through much of its length and is suitable for walking, running, cycling, and roller skating. A crushed bluestone surfaced bridle path travels near the paved trail in the park's most westerly 32 miles (51 km).
The Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority (NVRPA) administers and maintains the park and its trails. NVRPA keeps most of the parkland surrounding the trails in a natural state. The park authority has placed alongside the paved trail a series of mile markers and a number of interpretative exhibits that describe the historic and natural features of the park (see Washington and Old Dominion Railroad#Stations for locations of historical markers near the W&OD Trail).
The headquarters office of the park is near the east side of the trail at Smith's Switch Road near Ashburn. A park rest stop is adjacent to the trail near the park's headquarters.
Read more about Washington & Old Dominion Railroad Regional Park: Trail Route, W&OD Trail Features, History of The Regional Park, Historic Structures in The Regional Park, Displays and Museums Along The W&OD Trail, Natural Resources of The Regional Park, Transmission Lines in The Regional Park, Gallery of W&OD Trail
Famous quotes containing the words washington, dominion, railroad and/or park:
“I know of no pursuit in which more real and important services can be rendered to any country than by improving its agriculture, its breed of useful animals, and other branches of a husbandman’s cares.”
—George Washington (1732–1799)
“The hand that signed the treaty bred a fever,
And famine grew, and locusts came;
Great is the hand that holds dominion over
Man by a scribbled name.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“... no other railroad station in the world manages so mysteriously to cloak with compassion the anguish of departure and the dubious ecstasies of return and arrival. Any waiting room in the world is filled with all this, and I have sat in many of them and accepted it, and I know from deliberate acquaintance that the whole human experience is more bearable at the Gare de Lyon in Paris than anywhere else.”
—M.F.K. Fisher (1908–1992)
“The park is filled with night and fog,
The veils are drawn about the world,”
—Sara Teasdale (1884–1933)