Pennsylvania Avenue Line (Washington, D.C.) to take up such portions of their tracks as may come in way of the improvement of the Capitol Grounds". This improvement gave the Capitol Grounds their present shape, bounded by First Street West and East and B Street North and South, and the Pennsylvania Avenue Line was moved to First Street West and B Street South. The B&O station branch was moved to First Avenue West and C Street North, ending at New Jersey Avenue; this had been the route of the B&O before its tracks (actually those of the Alexandria and Washington Railroad) were ripped up in 1872.
Baltimore and Potomac Railroad ran from Baltimore north into Pennsylvania first to York and then into the state capital at Harrisburg on the Susquehanna River. The PRR at the time had access to Baltimore via its own lines (the NCRY from the north and the Philadelphia, Baltimore & Washington Railroad from the northeast), and used the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O) and its Washington Branch line to continue southwest to the national capital at Washington, D.C.. The PRR and B&O had trouble getting along, but Maryland refused to grant a charter to end the B&O's monopoly on Baltimore-Washington travel. However, the Baltimore and Potomac