With the inauguration of The Northern Railway Rio de Janeiro on 23 April 1886, the region was definitely linked to the former Federal District, with the opening of new stations in 1911, the Estrada de Ferro Leopoldina by multiplying the travel and as the number of passengers in Gramacho, St. Benedict, Actura (Champs Elysees), spring and Saracuruna.
However, despite recovery of the railroad that brought the Baixada still suffering with lack of sanitation, the tightness factor of its progress.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the land of Baixada used to alleviate the demographic pressures of the city of Rio de Janeiro, the statistics show that in 1910, the population was eight hundred people in Meriti, moving in 1920 to 2920. The rapid population growth caused the fractionation and blending of the old farms at that time, unproductive.
Only in 1924 set up the first power network in the municipality. With the opening of the Rio-Petropolis (now Washington Luís highway) in 1928, Meriti again thrive. Many companies bought land and have settled in the region due to proximity to the Rio de Janeiro.
The process of emancipation of the city was related to the formation of a group that organized the "People Caxiense Union (UPC): journalists, doctors and local politicians. In 1940, the committee was set up pro-empowerment: Sylvio Goulart, Rufino Gomes, Amadeu Lanzeloti, Joaquim Linhares, Jose Basilio, Carlos and Antonio Fraga Moreira. The government's reaction was immediate and the demonstrators were arrested.
In the 1940s, the federal government promoted the clearance of more than six thousand miles of rivers and built over 200 bridges in the Baixada Fluminense.
The big growth for which he has spent Meriti federal Manuel Reis to propose the creation of the district of Caxias. On March 14, 1931, by act of the intervenor Plínio de Castro Casado, was created by State Decree No. 2559, the district of Caxias, based in Old
