High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The earliest electric railway, or streetcar line, in Northern Virginia opened in 1892. At their peak, when merged into a single interurban system (the Washington-Virginia Railway), the successors of this and several other lines ran between downtown Washington, D.C., Rosslyn and Arlington Junction – present day Crystal City – and out to Mount Vernon, Fairfax City and Nauck (in Arlington County). Electric rail also went west from Georgetown and Rosslyn on the Washington and Old Dominion Railway`s Bluemont Division via Leesburg to the town of Bluemont at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains and on the W OD`s Great Falls Division via Cherrydale and McLean to Great Falls Park. Despite early success, the streetcars were unable to compete with the automobile and with each other, and, plagued with management and financial problems, ceased operations in the 1930s and 1940s.