This tour page begins where the railroads enter near the top right corner and proceeds generally west and southwest through Ivy City and most of Washington Terminal toward Union Station. Per this map, Washington Terminal's landowner was/is The Real Estate & Improvement Company of Baltimore.

Link: LoC source image

Northbound AMTK 2024 is speeding toward the Quality Inn near New York Avenue and 16th Street NE where during the early 1900s former railroad foes B&O and PRR met to share a then-new route into downtown Washington, DC (behind the photographer). Signals near the Quality Inn (right) are probably second generation PRR, old enough that their digits have faded from 1338. Amtrak colorized the lamps.

Initially, B&O enjoyed a monopoly on railroad service to Washington, but eventually Pennsy muscled in. Each RR had its own DC station, making the downtown area and Mall busy with steam engines, unsightly steam engines according to the politicians.

They "encouraged" the railroads to build the shared Union Station that opened in 1907. Under the auspices of Washington Terminal Company, B&O and Pennsy constructed a new approach to the station and, for the next 3 or so miles, tracks originating with the two competitors still mingle.

On the left is the eastern limit of railroad maitenance facilities known as Ivy City Yard.

Link: 1975

Southbound AMTK 2000 is rolling away from the camera as it passes Amtrak's Ivy City maintenance shops. The facility dates to 1901 as a joint project of B&O and PRR during the period when PRR owned enough B&O stock to control it. The two railroads formed a third, the Washington Terminal Company, to oversee the operations in Washington, including at a Union Station that had not yet been constructed.

The containers adjacent New York Avenue at bottom left of the main photo are part of "Hecht Town", a publicity stunt to promote redevelopment of the former Hecht Company warehouse on the south side of New York Avenue. The space would later be remade into WMATA employee parking.

At the right had been two roundhouses and two engine turntables.

Avelia Liberty trainsets, also known as NextGen Acela and Acela II, entered revenue service less than a year before this photo.

The shops handle newer equipment as well, such as these three Siemens model ALC-42s wearing Phase VII livery.

Ivy City's dual roundhouses had room for dozens of engines and other rolling stock. The near roundhouse was demolished during the 1950s; the far one lasted into the 1980s. Both were built on what had been the infield of Ivy City horse racing track, a casualty of the temperance movement of the 1890s that put it out of business. As of 2026, only one turntable remains extant.

Links: LoC source photo, twin, Shorpy

From the post card, "A Pennsylvania GG-1 electric, a Chesapeake and Ohio Hudson, a Baltimore and Ohio early EMD Diesel, and a B&O Pacific type steam locomotive. Photographed at Washington Terminal's Ivy City coaling station. Washington, D.C., 1950. Photograph by Leonard W. Rice."

Before being partially demolished during the mid-1950s, this coaling tower had stood just west of the roundhouses at a location now occupied by the southernmost bays of Ivy City's maintenance shops.

Links: DDOT source photo, Amtrak

Amtrak 66, a model P42DC, is seen here in its original paint. It would be scrapped after being involved in several significant collisions.

Switchers AMTK 798 and AMTK 558 hide part of the Hecht Company warehouse built in Streamline Moderne style during 1937. The Hecht Company, founded in Baltimore in 1857, became one of the area's major department store chains. A month after this photo, the Hecht chain was purchased and many stores were soon renamed Macy's. Hecht's New York Avenue warehouse fell into disuse at that time, then sat vacant about a decade until repurposed into a mixed-use retail and residential complex.

With its distinctive shape and rooftop water tank, the Hecht building is a handy reference point in photos all around Ivy City, such as this DDOT one at Save More Gas along New York Avenue circa 1960, the last era gasoline cost less than 30 cents per gallon.

Link: DDOT source photo

AMTK 907 gets reinvigorated at Ivy City's train spa.

This view looks back into the yard from the 9th Street overpass. Amtrak can access it only by crossing over the ex-B&O line, something done just north of Washington's Union Station.

The 9th Street overpass offers enough views to make any railfan's mouth water, but there is a reason this area is called the "holy grail of railfanning". Lots of trains, yes, but no place to park, a rough neighborhood, and if that wasn't enough, a once anthrax-contaminated post office (yes, this is where you can find the infamous Brentwood Postal Facility).

Link: Ivy City Yard

While under repair, AMTK 2036 does its best grasshopper imitation. This is the same train seen at the left of the prior photo.

Link: 1956

That white arm at one door reveals this to have been a mail car, one likely belonging to PRR. The US Congress declared all railroads to be official postal routes in 1838. A contract to carry mail was so lucrative that some smaller railroads were able to stay in business only because of it.

While the train was moving, the car's arm would snag a sack of mail hanging trackside, then workers inside the car would sort its letters by destination. It was not a job for anyone prone to motion sickness. Those jobs faded during the 1960s as the US Post Office phased out Railway post office (RPO) service in favor of trucks.

Many mail cars shared duty with or were repurposed into baggage cars.

Links: baggage cars, RPO cars

This unit began life in 1988 as a prototype Viewliner sleeper car built in an Amtrak-Budd partnership. During 2014, it was converted to a theater car and renumbered 10004. On paper, Amtrak classifies the car as a Maintenance of Way unit.

Link: American View

Washington Terminal Company livery makes this rebuilt SW1000R stand out as it rolls under 9th Street. Even its exhaust is bluish. Built in 1953, in a previous life "WATC 794" was Montour 83. Its job is to push and pull rail equipment around anywhere within Washington Terminal, and that includes Ivy City. WT Co. is almost wholly owned by Amtrak.

Links: MTR 83, more 794 pics

MARC commuter trains operate on both the ex-PRR, Amtrak "Penn Line" (two near tracks) and the ex-B&O, CSX "Camden Line" (adjacent). B&O's F Tower stood at this photo's right edge, adjacent to the 9th Street overpass, our next stop.

Links: 1975

The uncooperative (for railfanning) 9th Street overpass provides an overhead look back about a mile along the south side of Ivy City yards. In this reverse view, the ex-B&O (now CSX) tracks are on the left and the electrified ex-Pennsylvania RR tracks (now Amtrak) are on the right.

At the bottom of the photo, note the pair of ex-B&O tracks bends to the left: they are part of the large wye that now connects with CSX's Metropolitan Subdivision. The switch at the bottom leads a single track into Union Station.

Prior to the Magruder Branch and shared route to Union Station, B&O's right of way had continued across what has become New York Avenue, passing close to the Hecht Company warehouse seen on the right. B&P/PRR followed what later became CSX's Landover Subdividion.

Detour: Landover Subdividion tour at this site
Link: 9th Street 1975 rebuild

Looking the opposite direction (west) from the overpass...

The dual PRR tracks are on the left, along with the single B&O track to Union Station. Below is the CSX wye track that connects to the Metropolitan Branch.

Amtrak's Coach Yard is on the right. Yes, that blue sign at left represents a Howard Johnson Inn that as of 2018 still survives along New York Avenue.

The March 1971 DDOT photo at left looks west over the same yard from a vantage point along New York Avenue at 9th Street. Among other things, the photo reveals that HoJos is not an original: in 1971 the motel had been named Congress Inn. Rail passenger service approached its nadir during the early 1970s, hence the dearth of rail equipment in the yard.

Link: DDOT source photo

Ahead the tracks bend toward Union Station.

That's the top of the Washington Monument at the upper left corner.

At center left is an unusual set of signals as described by the Custom CPL panel of the next tour page.

Back at the 9th Street overpass... the Amtrak Coach Yard occupies the western end of Ivy City. West of that is a DC Metro yard. Switcher AMTK 562 is near photo center, next to a striped Virginia Railway Express engine.

As a location reference, that's the CSX Metropolitan Subdivision wye track at bottom.

For over a century, this area has been used to store coaches since there has always been insufficient room closer to Union Station.

Yes, at bottom that's the Met Branch wye connection in its B&O days.

Link: LoC source photo

B&O's wye track is elevated at right. Those dual water tanks were high volume ones that could refill a thirsty tender in one minute. When steam engines went away, so did these tanks. The distant bridge carried T Street over all the trackage from 1907 until it was demolished during 1974 to make room for DC Metro's Red line.

The smokestack belongs to a power house that supplied steam to various buildings around the yard. It is visible in several photos on the next page.

Links: LoC source photo, 1940, T Street bridge demo 1974, T Street bridge