Seminary Flag Stop (1906-1953) (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.

SEMINARY FLAG STOP: 1906-1953

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.

On May 20, 1871, D. F. Forrest of the neighboring Clermont Plantation had two acres of his land condemned for the railroad right-of-way and a stop to be named Seminary. There was no shelter or train siding here, only a cinder platform. Those waiting for a train could not wait by the track, but instead had to wait out on the roadway. The platform was located on the south side of the railroad track at the end of Quaker Lane in Alexandria. At the time, a road ran between the Burgundy farm in the south and the Virginia Protestant Episcopal Theological Seminary located about one mile to the north, hence the name of the stop.

Bishop William Meade, the Bishop of Virginia and Francis Scott Key, the author of "The Star-Spangled Banner" founded the seminary in 1823 to educate men for religious service. That first year, they had fourteen students enrolled and just two professors to teach them. During the American Civil War, the buildings at the seminary served as a field hospital for nearly 2,000 wounded Union soldiers, 500 of whom did not leave the seminary grounds. The seminary reopened after the war, and they built their iconic chapel in 1881. While the chapel burned down in 2010, the seminary continues educating students to this day.

Jump forward to the year 1906 and railroad officials were realizing that the Seminary flag stop had been a dangerous and uncomfortable one for passengers due to a lack of shelter against the rain or wind, as well as the need to cross other railroad tracks to reach the train. In 1906, the waiting platform moved to the north side of the tracks, and the Washington Southern installed a shelter for passengers to wait in at the foot of Quaker Lane. Simple measures like these were a nod to the success the Washington Southern had in improving train safety. Also during this time, improvements were made around Seminary Stop to speed up the sorting of traffic coming into the city from the south.