Pohick Flag Stop (1872-1890) (Site)

These coordinates mark the exact spot where the flag stop was located. No visible remains exist. The photograph above is an exact replica of what this flag stop looked like, with the standard Pennsylvania Railroad shelter directly abutting the railroad tracks.

A railroad flag stop is a station where a train will only stop if a passenger waiting on the platform waves a flag or gives a signal to the conductor, essentially requesting the train to stop; this is typically used at lightly used stations where trains wouldn't normally stop unless someone needed to get on or off. Many stations would have a box on the platform or station containing a white or green flag that the passenger would wave at the train. If it was a staffed station, the agent or clerk would flag the train. The conductor of the train would acknowledge they had seen the flag by sounding two short whistles.


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Here follows an excerpt from "The Iron Road of Franconia" book about the railroad written by local historian Nathaniel Lee.

POHICK FLAG STOP: 1872-1890
POHICK FLAG STOP NO. 2: 1890-1904

This railroad line through Fairfax County changed its name several times, which continues to be the cause of much confusion for armchair historians. The Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad Company was chartered in 1834, and the line was finished as far as Fredericksburg by 1837. From this point, passengers bound for Washington took a coach to Aquia Creek and then took a steamboat up the river. The line then extended to join the Pennsylvania Railroad's subsidiary line, the Alexandria and Washington Railroad after the Civil War. In 1872, the name was changed to the Alexandria and Fredericksburg Railroad Company. In 1890, the Washington Southern Railway took control of the railroad through Fairfax County, and then folded into the Richmond - Washington Company as a part of the RF&P Railroad in 1920, which is what most people remember. CSX Transportation finally took over operations along the line in 1991. Confused yet? You should be. That's about six name changes over 150 years for the railroad in Fairfax County. Please read the book "The Iron Road of Franconia" for a more detailed explanation of all the changes.

Lucy Fowler had her property condemned in 1871 to construct the railroad right-of-way, and two stations were built on her property, Pohick and Accotink. Ms. Lucy Fowler is the daughter of John Fowler, who owned a plantation on the north side of Pohick Road and earned a living as a land surveyor for Fairfax County following the Revolutionary War.

The Pohick stop consisted of just a small waiting shelter located on the western side of the track approximately 400 feet southwest of the current Virginia Railway Express platform at Lorton Station. The Pohick stop gained its name from nearby Pohick Creek, a fourteen-mile-long stream running from Burke to Fort Belvoir. The word "Pohick" is a Native American term meaning "hickory" that comes from the Doeg people. They lived along the watersheds of the Potomac River in southeast Fairfax County.

With the Washington Southern Railway taking control of the railroad line in 1890, big changes were on the way. While some station name changes made sense, others were not so easy to understand. One kindly railroad worker accused the Washington Southern offices of "tossing names in the air to see where they would land." To summarize a complicated explanation, for the next thirteen years between 1890 and 1903, there would be three stops using the name Pohick at the same time within one mile of each other on the line. The Pennsylvania Railroad took the step of listing them all as Pohick, Pohick No. 1 and Pohick No. 2 on their timetables.

The original Accotink Stop located on Accotink Creek would receive a name change to Pohick Stop, due to the nearby Long Branch Station name change. The railroad company chose to expand Pohick Stop by building a shelter for a signalman and a large water tower about 800 feet south of the original stop and both stops would now go by the name of Pohick. While the northern platform remained the access point for passengers, the southern platform was for freight trains taking on water or coal along with instructions from the signalman prior to the climb up the grueling Franconia Grade. A memorandum from the railroad company archives in Richmond stated that they did not want two stations with the same name in order to prevent confusion, and yet the station located just a half-mile south already had the name Pohick for the past eighteen years. That station would now be redesignated as Pohick Stop No. 2

Prior to the construction of two tracks along the line between 1903 and 1907, the Alexandria and Fredericksburg Railway operated just a single track along its route. Northbound and southbound trains had to share the same track. The number of trains allowed on a single track at the same time is severely limited because trains cannot run too close to each other without risking a collision. Unfortunately, that very scenario occurred here at Pohick Flag Stop at 7:30 in the evening on Thursday, August 1, 1889.

A southbound passenger train had departed from Alexandria's Union Station under the direction of Conductor Robert E. Murdock and Engineer Jeremiah Desmond. They were under orders to pull over onto the siding once they reached Lorton Station to wait for a northbound train to pass them on the single track. However, Murdock and Desmond were late in departing Alexandria's Union Station, and decided to run the train well above the speed limit in order to make up lost time and still make the siding at Lorton. Even though there was still daylight, a curve in the track south of Pohick Flag Stop meant that neither train was visible to the other. Murdock and Desmond were less than a half-mile from pulling into Lorton Station when they met the northbound freight train at full speed. Murdock noticed the impending disaster too late, and could only stare at his watch in confusion and dismay. As all hands aboard leapt from the engine, they called to Desmond to do the same. Not understanding the situation, Desmond exclaimed, "Why?" The crash smashed up both engines and badly wrecked the train cars. The impact threw the tender above the cab and crushed Desmond to death inside. He left behind his wife and seven children in Alexandria. Twenty passengers were also injured in the crash.

If there is a positive aspect to this tragedy, a fortunate last-minute decision did spare more deaths. At Alexandria's Union Station, the Wheeler family was looking forward to travelling home to Woodbridge after a day in the city. When the train pulled in, the three young Wheeler children eagerly boarded the first car of the train. Just prior to departure, they all switched to the rear car of the train on a suggestion from their father. At the time of the crash, the front car was empty of passengers, sparing them from the devastation the front car sustained in the wreck.