The W&OD Trail is a 100-foot-wide park in Virginia that includes 45 miles of paved trail for walking, running, cycling, skating, and more, built on the roadbed of the former Washington and Old Dominion Railroad and running through both the urban heartland and countryside of Northern Virginia from Shirlington in Arlington County to Purcellville in Loudoun County. The first section opened in Falls Church in 1974 and was dedicated by then mayor Harold Miller, and the trail was completed in 1988. Along the paved trail are an additional 32 miles of adjacent gravel equestrian trail for horseback riding over hills and through shallow streams. The route follows a railroad first known as the Alexandria, Loudoun, and Hampshire Railroad, begun in 1847 to carry commerce inland from the Alexandria seaport to Loudoun County, although that commerce never fully developed. Today the trail passes through what are now Arlington, Falls Church, Vienna, Reston, Herndon, Sterling, Leesburg, and Purcellville, and it offers uncommon views where it crosses the Capital Beltway, crosses Route 66 in two places, crosses Route 7 near Leesburg, and runs beside a Luckstone Quarry between Leesburg and Purcellville.
