The Bluemont Junction Trail is a 1.2-mile (1.9 km) asphalt-paved rail trail in Arlington County, Virginia, United States, that the Arlington County government constructed along a former branch of the defunct Washington and Old Dominion Railroad. The shared use path travels southwest from Ballston through Bluemont Junction Park to Bluemont Junction. The trail connects Ballston to the Washington & Old Dominion Railroad Trail and the Four Mile Run Trail in and near Bluemont Park.
Looking north on the Bluemont Junction Trail, with Fields Park to the left and Ballston buildings in the background (January 2017)
Image: Bluemont Junction Trail
Trailhead at the I-66 exit to eastbound Fairfax Drive in Ballston, looking west. (January 2017)
Trail passing Fields Park, looking northeast towards Ballston. (January 2017)
Washington and Old Dominion Railroad
The Washington and Old Dominion Railroad was an intrastate short-line railroad located in Northern Virginia, United States. The railroad was a successor to the bankrupt Washington and Old Dominion Railway and to several earlier railroads, the first of which began operating in 1859. The railroad closed in 1968.
The former W&OD 57, a General Electric 70-ton diesel–electric switcher locomotive built in 1956, at the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's Riverside Yard in Baltimore in January 1969.
Library of Congress Lewis McKenzie, between 1860 and 1875
A Union Army train running on the line was the focus of a Confederate States Army attack in the 1861 Battle of Vienna, Virginia
John Roll McLean (1904)
