92-533: VGN is an initialism that could refer to: VGN, reporting mark of the former Virginian Railway (1907–1959) Verkehrsverbund Großraum Nürnberg ("Transport Association of the Greater Nürnberg Area"), mass transit agency in the Nuremberg Metropolitan Region , Germany VGN Projects Estates , Indian real-estate company Topics referred to by
184-760: A nurse in the Confederate capital of Richmond . The N&P was severed by the war. The portion east of the Blackwater River at Zuni, Virginia , was held by the Union for most of the war. The eastern portion of the City Point Railroad played a crucial role for Union General Ulysses S. Grant during the Siege of Petersburg, and was operated by the United States Military Railroad . The South Side Railroad
276-415: A railway electrification system . With work authorized beginning in 1922, a 134-mile portion of the railroad in the mountains from Mullens, West Virginia over Clark's Gap and several other major grades to Roanoke, Virginia was equipped with overhead wires supported by a catenary system at 11,000 volts. The VGN built its own power plant at Narrows, Virginia . The electrification was completed in 1925 at
368-456: A Congressman, local officials, several noted authors and historians. The delegation of retirees based in Roanoke also attended. In early 2012, Norfolk Southern announced a program to paint selected units of new GE ES44AC and EMD SD70ACe orders into heritage paint schemes for predecessor roads. Virginian Railway was chosen among 19 other former railroads represented in the program. NS SD70ACe 1069
460-455: A Virginian." Today, major portions of the VGN low-gradient route are the preferred eastbound coal path for N&W's successor Norfolk Southern Railway . Other portions of VGN right-of-way in eastern Virginia now transport fresh water and are under study for future high speed passenger rail service to South Hampton Roads from Richmond and Petersburg. The former VGN property at Sewell's Point is part of
552-565: A book she was reading by Walter Scott . From Scott's historical Scottish novels, Otelia chose the place names of Windsor , Waverly and Wakefield . She tapped the Scottish Clan "McIvor" for the name of Ivor , a small Southampton County town. When they could not agree on a name for a station just west of the Sussex County line in Prince George , it is said that the young couple invented
644-531: A brakeman on the Fairhaven Branch Railroad while saving his money. In 1861 he and a friend went to the mountains of Pennsylvania , and helped develop oil and natural gas resources there during the U.S. Civil War , eventually becoming one of the key men with John D. Rockefeller 's Standard Oil Trust and a multi-millionaire. One of the wealthiest men in the US, Rogers was an energetic entrepreneur, much like
736-628: A combination of smaller railroads in the eastern half of the United States. Today, former N&W trackage remains a vital portion of the Norfolk Southern Railway, a Fortune 500 company. The headquarters of the Norfolk Southern Railway and the parent Norfolk Southern Corporation are now located in Atlanta, Georgia . While the Powhatan Arrow (all- coach , Norfolk–Cincinnati/Columbus) was
828-621: A cost of $ 15 million, and had its own power plant at Narrows, Virginia . It shared electrical resources with N&W from 1925 to 1950, when the N&;W discontinued its own, shorter, electrified section through the Elkhorn Tunnel and Great Flat Top Mountain region. The VGN track was de-electrified in 1962, after the N&W-VGN merger. In 1955, the N&W operated in North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland, and Ohio. In 1959,
920-722: A cost of $ 15 million, equal to $ 260,607,211 today. A link was established with Norfolk & Western to share electricity from its nearby electrification during contingencies. ALCO and Westinghouse supplied the electric locomotives , which were equipped with pantographs . The 36 initial units were normally linked in groups of three as one set, and had much greater load capacity than the steam power they replaced. In 1948, four huge EL-2B twin-unit locomotives were purchased, followed by twelve EL-C rectifier locomotives in 1955. The seemingly remotely located terminal Page and Rogers planned and built at Sewell's Point played an important role in 20th-century U.S. naval history. Beginning in 1917
1012-558: A group of innovative bi-level autorack railcars. These autoracks had end doors and were very large by the standards of the time; at 75 feet (23 m) long, each autorack could carry 8 completed automobiles. These autoracks were a big success and helped lead to the development of today's fully enclosed autoracks. Tri-level autoracks were developed in the 1970s. During the 1960s, autoracks took over rail transportation of newly completed automobiles in North America. They carried more cars in
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#17328482807601104-612: A huge celebration of the new "Mountains to the Sea" railroad's completion. Rogers departed the next day on his first (and only) tour of the new railroad. He died suddenly six weeks later at the age of 69 at his home in New York. By then, the work of the Page-Rogers partnership to build the Virginian Railway had been completed. While neither William Page or Henry Rogers operated the railway, it
1196-594: A line with territory reaching as far north as Harrisburg, Pennsylvania . This would become referred to as the Shenandoah Valley Division. In 1885, several small mining companies representing about 400,000 acres (1,600 km ) of bituminous coal reserves grouped together to form the coalfields' largest landowner, the Philadelphia-based Flat-Top Coal Land Association.The N&W bought the association and reorganized it as
1288-578: A man who knew "the land as a farmer knows his fields." He was also an energetic entrepreneur. Author H. Reid summed it up by labeling Col. Page "The idea man from Ansted." Henry Huttleston Rogers (1840–1909) was a financier and industrialist who was raised in Fairhaven , Massachusetts , the son of Rowland Rogers, a former ship captain, bookkeeper, and grocer. He began working while young, working part-time in his father's grocery store and delivering newspapers. After graduating from high school, Rogers worked as
1380-505: A marvelous new railroad which remained closely held until 1937; his son and sons-in-law such as Urban H. Broughton and William R. Coe were among its leaders. Coe served almost its entire history. Throughout that profitable 50-year history, the VGN continued to follow the Page-Rogers policy of "paying up front for the best." It became particularly well known for treating its employees and vendors well, another investment that paid rich dividends. The VGN sought (and achieved) best efficiencies in
1472-661: A new word in honor of their "dispute", which is how the tiny community of Disputanta was named. The N&P was completed in 1858. Of small stature, dynamic "Little Billy" Mahone became a major general in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War . He was widely regarded as the hero of the Battle of the Crater during the Siege of Petersburg in 1864–65. Otelia Mahone served as
1564-546: A practice rare outside Britain (where most railways either built their own locomotives or had outside contractors build locomotives to their designs). The locomotives were built at the Roanoke Shops at Roanoke. The Shops employed thousands of craftsmen, who refined their products over the years. The A, J, and Y6 locomotives, designed, built and maintained by NW personnel, brought the company industry-wide fame for its excellence in steam power. The N&W's commitment to steam power
1656-613: A promotional booklet published in 1939, the N&W wrote "For the second time in 12 years, the American Museum of Safety has awarded the Harriman Memorial Gold Medal to the Norfolk & Western Railway for the outstanding safety record during 1938 among class I railroads of the United States." It is further noted that the railway carried one million passengers more than 86,000,000 miles (138,000,000 km) without incident in
1748-583: A railroad builder ended in 1881 when northern financial interests took control. At the foreclosure auction, the AM&;O was purchased by E.W. Clark & Co. , a private banking firm in Philadelphia with ties to the large Pennsylvania Railroad . The PRR was seeking a southern connection for its Shenandoah Valley Railroad (SVRR), which was then under construction up the valley from the Potomac River . In 1881,
1840-584: A rural location where a new coal pier was located on the harbor near Norfolk . Late in 1906, near the halfway point on the Tidewater Railway between Roanoke and Sewell's Point, a new town with space set aside for railroad offices and shops was created in Lunenburg County, Virginia . It was named Victoria, in honor of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, who was admired by Henry Rogers. Victoria
1932-589: A small Virginia village on the Roanoke River , to be the junction of SVRR and the N&W. Big Lick was later renamed Roanoke, Virginia . Over time, Roanoke began to grow and in the 1950s, reached a population of over 90,000. At its founding, the N&W primarily transported agricultural products. Kimball, who had a strong interest in geology , led the railroad's efforts to open the Pocahontas coalfields in western Virginia and southern West Virginia . In mid-1881,
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#17328482807602024-459: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Virginian Railway The Virginian Railway ( reporting mark VGN ) was a Class I railroad located in Virginia and West Virginia in the United States. The VGN was created to transport high quality "smokeless" bituminous coal from southern West Virginia to port at Hampton Roads . Early in
2116-920: Is in use as a museum. Similar plans are underway by the local chapter of the National Railway Historical Society in Roanoke for the Virginian Railway Passenger Station . The Oak Hill Railroad Depot in Oak Hill, West Virginia , the only remaining Virginian station in West Virginia, has also been restored by the local chapter of the National Railway Historical Society. In May 2003, the Virginian Railway Yard Historic District at Princeton
2208-463: The Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio Railroad (AM&O). The AM&O extended 408 miles (657 km) from Norfolk to Bristol, Virginia . The Mahones moved to the headquarters city of Lynchburg , the midpoint of the AM&O. The acronym AM&O was said to stand for "All Mine and Otelia's." The AM&O operated profitably in the early 1870s but like many railroads encountered financial problems during
2300-547: The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) approved VGN's merger into the N&W. In 1964, the former Wabash ; Nickel Plate ; Pittsburgh and West Virginia Railway ; and Akron, Canton and Youngstown Railroad were brought into the system in one of the most complex mergers of the era. This consolidation, plus the 1976 addition of a more direct route to Chicago, Illinois , made N&W an important Midwestern railroad that provided direct single-line service between
2392-461: The N&;W , was a US class I railroad , formed by more than 200 railroad mergers between 1838 and 1982. It was headquartered in Roanoke, Virginia , for most of its existence. Its motto was "Precision Transportation"; it had a variety of nicknames, including "King Coal" and "British Railway of America". In 1986, N&W merged with Southern Railway to form today's Norfolk Southern Railway . The N&W
2484-590: The Nickel Plate Road and Wabash formed a system that operated 7,595 miles (12,223 km) of road on 14,881 miles (23,949 km) of track from North Carolina to New York and from Virginia to Iowa. In 1980, the N&W merged its business operation with those of the Southern Railway , another profitable carrier, to create the Norfolk Southern Corporation holding company . The N&W and
2576-665: The Norfolk & Western Railway (N&W). While the bigger railroads were preoccupied in developing nearby areas and shipping coal via rail to Hampton Roads, Page formed a plan to take advantage of the undeveloped coal lands, with Rogers and several others as investors. A powerful partnership had been formed. Originally, the Page-Rogers scheme was a short line railroad , the Deepwater Railway , formed in 1898, an intrastate line intended to be only in West Virginia. Eventually, after establishing relationships to interchange coal traffic with
2668-513: The Panic of 1873 . A fourth road of the AM&O family was planned to extend west through the Cumberland Gap to Kentucky, but was never built. Mahone retained control of AM&O for several more years before his relationship with English and Scottish bondholders deteriorated in 1876 and receivers were appointed to oversee his work. After several years of operating under receiverships, Mahone's role as
2760-531: The Virginia Military Institute (VMI), was employed by Francis Mallory to build the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad (N&P) and eventually became its president in the pre-Civil War era. Construction of N&P began in 1853. Mahone's innovative corduroy roadbed through the Great Dismal Swamp near Norfolk, Virginia , employed a log foundation laid at right angles beneath the surface of
2852-549: The 100th anniversary of the 1907 founding of their favorite railroad, the Virginian Railway. In April 2005, the Virginian Railway Coalfield Seminar was held for three days at Twin Falls State Park, near Mullens, West Virginia. Railfriends from many parts of the United States toured coal mining and railroad facilities for three days on several buses, and participated in presentations and group seminars with
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2944-499: The 1950s, consisted of separate runs from Page, West Virginia to Roanoke; and then between August, 1952 and July, 1955, from Roanoke to Norfolk. The last remaining passenger service on the line was discontinued by 1956. The latter route was on a more southerly and more rural itinerary than mainline of the Virginian's major competitor, Norfolk and Western, whose main line went through Lynchburg and Petersburg. During World War I , VGN
3036-448: The 20th century, William Nelson Page , a civil engineer and coal mining manager, joined forces with a silent partner , industrialist financier Henry Huttleston Rogers (a principal of Standard Oil and one of the wealthiest men in the world), to develop the Deepwater Railway , a modest 85-mile long short line railroad to access untapped bituminous coal reserves in some of the most rugged sections of southern West Virginia. When Page
3128-464: The AM&O was reorganized and renamed Norfolk and Western, a name perhaps taken from an 1850s charter application filed by citizens of Norfolk, Virginia . George Frederick Tyler became president. Frederick J. Kimball , a civil engineer and partner in E.W. Clark & Co. , became First Vice President. Henry Fink, whom Mahone had hired in 1855, became Second Vice President and General Superintendent. Kimball and his board of directors selected Big Lick,
3220-572: The Atlantic Ocean and the Great Lakes and Mississippi River . In 1968, the N&W formed Dereco, a holding company that owned the Delaware & Hudson (D&H) and Erie Lackawanna (EL) railroads. Dereco's troubled railroads were not merged into the N&W: EL eventually joined Conrail and D&H was sold to Guilford Transportation Industries ; it is now part of Canadian Pacific. In 1970,
3312-628: The Depression. During World War I , the N&W was jointly operated with VGN under the USRA 's wartime takeover of the Pocahontas Roads. The operating efficiencies were significant, and after the war, when the railroads were returned to their respective owners and competitive status, the N&W never lost sight of the VGN and its low-gradient routing through Virginia. N&W meanwhile during World War 2 used their J's, K1's, A Class, and S1 Switchers to handle
3404-764: The N&W acquired the franchises to four other lines: the New River Railroad , Mining and Manufacturing Company, the Bluestone Railroad, and the East River Railroad. Consolidated into the New River Railroad Company, with Kimball as president, these railroads became the basis for N&W's New River Division, which was soon built from New Kanawha (near East Radford) up the west bank of the New River through Pulaski County and into Giles County to
3496-630: The N&W continued expansion westward with its lines through the wilderness of West Virginia with the Ohio Extension, eventually extending north across the Ohio River to Columbus, Ohio by the Scioto Valley Railroad. Acquisition of other lines, including the Cincinnati, Portsmouth and Virginia Railroad (CP&V) (which it had long supported and leased) extended the N&W system west along
3588-482: The N&W operated in North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Missouri, and Iowa. On September 1, 1981, the N&W acquired Illinois Terminal Railroad . The N&W was also a major investor in Piedmont Airlines . Sometime in the 1980s the song "Cargo Movin' People" was written and recorded, however it never was officially released to
3680-586: The N&W's flagship passenger train, sporting a regal maroon livery with gold trim and hauled by a J Class 4-8-4 Northern Type steam locomotive, the railroad also operated a number of other passenger trains. These include: The N&W also participated in five inter-line passenger trains: The last three were unusual in that the Southern Railway operated the trains, either side of the N&W stretch between Lynchburg and Bristol. The Norfolk-bound trains arrived at Norfolk Terminal Station , which also served as
3772-609: The Ohio River to Cincinnati, Ohio , south from Lynchburg to Durham, North Carolina , and south from Roanoke to Winston-Salem, North Carolina . By the time Kimball died in 1903, the railroad had attained the basic structure it would use for more than 60 years. In 1890 the N&W bought out the Shenandoah Valley Railroad . This gave the railroad a reach north of the Potomac River and the Virginia-Maryland border, and
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3864-568: The Pocahontas Coal and Coke Company (PCCC). The PCCC was later renamed the Pocahontas Land Corporation (PLC) and is now a subsidiary of NS. As the availability and fame of high-quality Pocahontas bituminous coal increased, economic forces took over. Coal operators and their employees settled dozens of towns in southern West Virginia , and in the next few years, as coal demand swelled, some of them amassed fortunes. The countryside
3956-511: The Roanoke locomotive department, in 1916 the N&W added a large terminal (one full-circle roundhouse and two half-circle roundhouses), car shops, and yard at Shaffers Crossing, west of downtown. These continued to operate after the conversion to diesel power. Because the Roanoke Shops were so large and complete, the only other heavy repair site needed was located in Portsmouth, Ohio to serve
4048-516: The Southern Railway continued as separate railroads operating under the single holding company. In 1982, the Southern Railway was renamed Norfolk Southern Railway and the holding company transferred the Norfolk & Western Railway to the control of the newly renamed company. The N&W's earliest predecessor was the City Point Railroad (CPRR), a 9-mile (14 km) short-line railroad formed in 1838 to extend from City Point (now part of
4140-485: The Tidewater Railway in Virginia into a single interstate railroad, only a few months after Victoria was incorporated. On April 15, 1907, William Nelson Page became the first president of the new Virginian Railway. Work progressed on the VGN throughout 1907 and 1908 using construction techniques not available when the larger railroads had been built about 25 years earlier. By paying for work with Henry Rogers' personal fortune,
4232-587: The US Naval Station, Norfolk . Although one of the smaller fallen flags of U.S. railroads, the Virginian Railway continues to have a loyal following of former employees, modelers, authors, photographers, historians and preservationists. Preservationists have saved VGN passenger stations in Suffolk and Roanoke, Virginia. The Suffolk Passenger Station, which was also used by the Seaboard railroads, has been restored and
4324-448: The Virginian Railway was largely financed with Rogers' personal fortune. It was a modern, well-engineered railroad with all-new infrastructure and could operate more efficiently than its larger competitors. Throughout a profitable 50-year history, VGN continued the Page-Rogers philosophy of "paying up front for the best." It achieved best efficiencies in the mountains, rolling piedmont, and flat tidewater terrain. Known for operating some of
4416-515: The Virginian Railway. However, the US Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) turned down attempts at combining the roads until the late 1950s, when a proposed Norfolk & Western Railway and Virginian Railway merger was approved in 1959. Electric operation ended June 30, 1962. Two years after the merger, a book written by author and historian H. Reid , The Virginian Railway , was published. Reid stated that "There will always be
4508-564: The Virginian was built mostly for coal and was built as straight and steady in grade as possible. William Nelson Page (1854–1932) was a civil engineer and entrepreneur. Page, who was born in Virginia and educated at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville , originally came to West Virginia in the 1870s to help build the double-track Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) in the New and Kanawha River Valleys. A colorful man by all accounts, Colonel Page, as he came to be known, soon became involved in many coal and related enterprises in
4600-559: The bigger railroads failed, the Deepwater's right-of-way was extended to reach the West Virginia-Virginia state line near Glen Lyn, Virginia . Important points on the Deepwater Railway were Page , Mullens and Princeton in West Virginia. In Virginia, another intrastate railroad, the Tidewater Railway , was formed in 1904, with right-of-way across the southern tier of Virginia from Giles County (which borders West Virginia) to Norfolk County on Hampton Roads. The principal points were Roanoke , Victoria , Suffolk , and Sewell's Point ,
4692-413: The end of 1925 VGN operated 545 route-miles on 902 miles of track; at the end of 1956 mileages were 611 and 1089. The following are the major stations and crossings on the Virginian Railway's 436 mile main line : Beginning in 1903 Page, West Virginia , named for Col. William Page, was the site of a switching yard, roundhouse, and station on the Deepwater Railway and later the Virginian Railway. After
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#17328482807604784-404: The event. In October 2004, the Roanoke Times ran a feature story about the weekly meetings of the "Takin' Twenty with the Virginian Brethren" group of retired VGN employees, prominently displaying the model of a modern GE locomotive in Virginian Railway livery, which they hope the railroad will use as a basis for a special painting of current-day Norfolk Southern Railway locomotive to commemorate
4876-460: The former Jamestown Exposition grounds adjacent to the VGN coal pier was an important facility for the United States Navy . The VGN transported the high quality "smokeless" West Virginia bituminous coal favored by the US Navy for its ships, though all ships not built for fuel oil were converted to fuel oil well before WW II. In the mid-1950s VGN management realized that the company's devotion to coal as its energy source (for steam locomotives and
4968-428: The former Princeton (WV) Shops, was moved to newly laid rails at Victoria, where it is the centerpiece of a new rail heritage park, dedicated in summer 2005. In May 2003 a Gathering of Rail Friends was held at Victoria, Virginia, home to a museum, with a park with historical interpretations of the roundhouse and turntable sites under development. The Norfolk Southern Railway sent its exhibition train to nearby Crewe for
5060-461: The independent city of Hopewell, Virginia ), a port on the tidal James River , to Petersburg, Virginia , on the fall line of the shallower Appomattox River . In 1854, CPRR became part of the South Side Railroad , which connected Petersburg with Lynchburg , where it interchanged through traffic with the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad (V&T) and the James River and Kanawha Canal . William Mahone (1826–95), an 1847 engineering graduate of
5152-419: The largest and best steam, electric, and diesel motive power, it was nicknamed "Richest Little Railroad in the World." Merged into the Norfolk and Western Railway in 1959, a large portion of the former VGN remains in service in the 21st century for the Norfolk Southern Railway , a Class I railroad headquartered in Atlanta. The Virginian Railway (VGN) was conceived early in the 20th century by two men. One
5244-419: The mountains of West Virginia and Rogers had already become a millionaire and a principal of Standard Oil before their partnership was formed early in the 20th century. Initially, their project was an 80-mile (130 km)-long short line railroad . After failing to establish favorable rates to interchange coal traffic with the big railroads (who shut them out through collusion), the project expanded. Rogers
5336-514: The mountains of Virginia and West Virginia, settling in the tiny mountain hamlet of Ansted in Fayette County, West Virginia . Col. Page was one of the more successful men who developed West Virginia's rich bituminous coal fields in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and built railroads to transport the coal. With his training and experience as a civil engineer, Page was well prepared to utilize southern West Virginia's resources. Former West Virginia Governor William A. MacCorkle described him as
5428-535: The mountains, rolling piedmont and flat tidewater terrain. The profitable VGN experimented with the finest and largest steam, electric, and diesel locomotives . It was well known for operating the largest and best equipment, and could afford to. It became nicknamed "the richest little railroad in the world." The VGN had a very major grade at Clark's Gap , West Virginia , and tried large steam locomotives before turning to an alternative already in use by one of its neighboring competitors, Norfolk & Western Railway:
5520-418: The mouth of the East River near Glen Lyn, Virginia . From there, the new line ran up the East River, crossing the Virginia-West Virginia border several times to reach the coalfields to the west near the Great Flat Top Mountain . Coal transported to Norfolk soon became NW's primary commodity, and led to great wealth and profitability. Kimball served as N&W president from 1883 to 1895. Under his leadership,
5612-423: The newly completed railroad. That June, Booker T. Washington made a whistle-stop speaking tour on VGN, traveling in Rogers' private car, Dixie , and later revealing that Rogers had been instrumental in funding many small country schools and institutions of higher education in the South for the betterment of Black communities. VGN operated over more modern alignments than the C&O, and the N&W, and its track
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#17328482807605704-432: The period from 1924 to 1938. At the end of 1925, the N&W operated 2,241 miles (3,607 km) of route on 4,429 miles (7,128 km) track; at the end of 1956 NW operated 2,132 miles (3,431 km) of route on 4,759 miles (7,659 km) of track. VGN was conceived and built by William Nelson Page and Henry Huttleston Rogers . Page had helped engineer and build the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway (C&O) through
5796-477: The power plant at Narrows for the electrification system) was becoming overshadowed by the economies of diesel-electric locomotives and a scarcity of parts for the older steam locomotives. Between 1954 and 1957 a total of 66 diesel-electric locomotives were purchased, including 25 Fairbanks-Morse H-24-66 Train Masters, and 40 H-16-44 smaller road switchers, two with steam generators to haul passenger trains. The last steam locomotive operated in June, 1957. At
5888-424: The public. It eventually made its way onto a DVD program titled Rails to Roanoke by Mark I Video in 1987. By 1996, N&W ran in most of the Midwest and Eastern states. Many N&W lines by 1998 were abandoned and some of them were never used again. However, the Norfolk to Bluefield line still exists but traffic has slowed because of its 12-mile 1.2% grade. In the 1950s, Canadian National Railway (CN) introduced
5980-420: The railroad eliminated steam locomotives in 1957 and the area's coal mines were largely depleted, the facilities at Page were unneeded. Mullens and Princeton in West Virginia, and Roanoke , Victoria and Sewell's Point in Virginia were other locations where extensive steam locomotive servicing facilities and roundhouses were also no longer needed after 1957. The passenger trains in the system's final decade,
6072-477: The railroads became the primary long-distance transporter of completed automobiles, one of few commodities where the industry has been able to overcome trucking in competition. In 1980, the profitable N&W teamed up with the Southern Railway , another profitable company, to form the Norfolk Southern Corporation and it paved the way for today's Norfolk Southern Railway (formerly the Southern Railway) to compete more effectively with CSX Transportation , itself
6164-474: The railway was built with no public debt. This feat, a key feature of the successful secrecy in securing the route, was not accomplished without some considerable burden to Rogers. Rogers suffered some financial setbacks in the Financial Panic of 1907 which began in March. Then, a few months later that year, he experienced a debilitating stroke. He was largely disabled for five months. Rogers recovered his health, at least partially, and saw to it that construction
6256-466: The remaining active line in West Virginia between Maben and Deepwater and operate it under the Kanawha River Railroad (KNWA) to load trains from Norfolk Southern at three mines on their system. The section between Maben and Mullens remains under Norfolk Southern control, with trackage rights for KNWA trains to interchange with NS at Elmore Yard. Norfolk and Western Railway The Norfolk and Western Railway ( reporting mark NW ), commonly called
6348-404: The same space and were easier to load and unload than the boxcars formerly used. Ever-larger auto carriers and specialized terminals were developed by NW and other railroads. The railroads were able to provide lower costs and greater protection from in-transit damage, such as that which may occur due to vandalism or weather and traffic conditions on unenclosed truck trailers. Using the autoracks,
6440-403: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title VGN . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=VGN&oldid=1161233296 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
6532-462: The swamp. It is still in use 150 years later and it withstands immense tonnages of coal traffic. Mahone married Otelia Butler , from Smithfield in Isle of Wight County, Virginia , a daughter of Robert Butler (1784–1853), a Virginia state treasurer. Popular legend has it that Otelia and William Mahone traveled along the newly completed N&P naming stations along the 52-mile (84 km) tangent between Suffolk and Petersburg from Ivanhoe ,
6624-453: The troop trains from Ohio to Norfolk, a point of embarkation. Other three were New York, San Francisco, and San Diego. However, the US Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) turned down attempts at combining the roads until 1959, when a proposed N&W-VGN merger was finally approved. The N&W also operated safely in this time, being the recipient of the Gold E. H. Harriman Award for 1938. In
6716-470: The two small railroads were merged in 1907 to form the Virginian Railway. Engineered by Page and financed almost entirely from Rogers' personal resources, VGN lines were laid on the principle that picking the best route and buying the best equipment would save operating expenses. Mark Twain spoke at VGN's dedication in Norfolk, Virginia, only 6 weeks before Rogers died in May 1909 after his only inspection trip on
6808-423: The way across Virginia to reach Hampton Roads , where a new coal pier was erected at Sewell's Point . The two projects were legally joined and renamed the Virginian Railway in early 1907. Despite efforts to stop them, they then built the "Mountains to Sea" railroad under the noses of the big railroads and the elite group of a few industrialists (so-called " robber barons ") who controlled them. Completed in 1909,
6900-620: The western section of the system, which employed about 2,000 in the 1920s. These shops took the place of the roundhouse and shop at Bluefield, West Virginia . The Roanoke & Southern Railway Company was organized in 1887, succeeding separate companies called Roanoke & Southern in North Carolina and Virginia. Norfolk and Western leased the Roanoke & Southern (called the Norfolk, Roanoke & Southern Rail Road by 1896) starting in 1892 but it became part of Norfolk and Western in 1911. The N&W operated profitably through World War I and World War II and paid regular dividends throughout
6992-537: The younger Page, and was also involved in many rail and mineral development projects. Rogers became acquainted with Page while the latter was president of Gauley Mountain Coal Company, among many other ventures. Page knew of rich untapped bituminous coal fields lying between the New River Valley and the lower Guyandotte River in southern West Virginia in an area not yet reached by C&O and its major competitor,
7084-656: Was a civil engineer , coal mining manager, and entrepreneur, William Nelson Page. His partner was millionaire industrialist , Henry Huttleston Rogers. Together, they built a well-engineered railroad that was virtually a "conveyor belt on rails" to transport high quality "smokeless" bituminous coal from southern West Virginia to port on Hampton Roads, near Norfolk, Virginia . The Virginian Railway transported coal from West Virginia Coalfields to ports in Hampton Roads. It grew in spite of competition from monopolies. While other railroads curved and went over hills to get to each town,
7176-423: Was also heavily damaged. William and Otelia Mahone were illustrious characters in post-bellum Virginia. Mahone got quickly to work restoring "his" N&P, and resumed his dream of linking the three trunk lines across the southern tier of Virginia to reach points to the west. He became president of all three, and drove the 1870 merger of N&P, South Side Railroad and the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad to form
7268-613: Was apparently a silent partner in the early stages, and the bigger railroads did not take Page seriously. However, the partners planned and then built a "Mountains to Sea" railroad from the coal fields of southern West Virginia to port near Norfolk at Sewell's Point in the harbor of Hampton Roads . They accomplished this right under the noses of the pre-existing and much bigger C&O and N&W railroads and their leaders by forming two small intrastate railroads, Deepwater Railway , in West Virginia, and Tidewater Railway in Virginia. Once right-of-way and land acquisitions had been secured,
7360-430: Was arguably a crowning achievement for each man. Together, they had conceived and built a modern, well-engineered railroad from the coal mines of West Virginia to tidewater at Hampton Roads. The Virginian Railway operated more efficiently than its larger competitors, had all-new infrastructure, and no debt. It was an accomplishment unparalleled in US railroading, before or since. Mr. Rogers left his heirs and employees with
7452-459: Was blocked by collusion of the bigger railroads, who refused to grant reasonable rates to interchange the coal traffic, he did not quit. As he continued building the original project, to provide their own link, using Rogers' resources and attorneys they quietly incorporated another intrastate railroad in Virginia, the Tidewater Railway . In this name, they secured the right-of-way needed all
7544-490: Was built to the highest standards. It provided major competition for coal traffic to C&O and the N&W. The 600-mile (970 km) VGN followed Rogers' philosophy throughout its profitable history, earning the nickname "Richest Little Railroad in the World." It operated some of the largest and most powerful steam, electric, and diesel locomotives. The VGN electrified 134 miles (216 km) of its route between 1922 and 1926 at
7636-472: Was continued on the railroad until it was completed early in 1909. The last spike in the Virginian Railway was driven on January 29, 1909, at the west side of the massive New River Bridge at Glen Lyn , near where the railroad crossed the West Virginia- Virginia state line. In April 1909, Henry Huttleston Rogers and Mark Twain , old friends, returned to Norfolk, Virginia together once again for
7728-567: Was due in part to its investment in the manufacturing capacity and human resources to build and operate steam locomotives, and partially due to the major commodity it hauled, coal. During the 1950s, N&W rebuilt its W Class 2-8-0 Consolidations into Shop Co W6 0-8-0Ts. In 1960, the N&W became the last major railroad in the United States to abandon steam locomotives for diesel-electric motive power. The Roanoke Shops continued to build and repair rolling stock until 2020 when Norfolk Southern closed them, ending 139 years of operations. To bolster
7820-511: Was famous for manufacturing its own steam locomotives , which were built at the Roanoke Shops , as well as its own hopper cars . After 1960, N&W was the last major Class I railroad using steam locomotives; the last remaining Y class 2-8-8-2s would eventually be retired in 1961. In December 1959, the N&W merged with the Virginian Railway (reporting mark VGN), a longtime rival in the Pocahontas coal region. By 1970, other mergers with
7912-462: Was funded by sale of handmade models and contributions. In April 2004 children of Boonsboro Elementary School in nearby Bedford, Virginia and the local Kiwanis group in Lynchburg, Virginia teamed to raise funds and work to save the railroad's only surviving original (circa 1910) class C-1 wooden caboose. In December 2004, a fully restored and equipped VGN caboose, C-10 No. 342, built by VGN employees in
8004-470: Was jointly operated with its adjacent competitor, the Norfolk & Western Railway (N&W), under the USRA 's wartime takeover of the Pocahontas Roads. The operating efficiencies were significant. After the war, the railroads were returned to their respective owners and competitive status. However, N&W never lost sight of VGN and its low-grade routing through Virginia. After World War I there were many attempts by C&O, N&W, and others to acquire
8096-646: Was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003. Three of VGN's locomotives and numerous cabooses and other rolling stock survive. One steam and one electric locomotive have been cosmetically restored, and are on display at the Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke, Virginia . In October 2002 VGN authors and enthusiasts restored the Mullens, West Virginia Caboose Museum which had been ravaged in one of West Virginia's notorious floods. The work
8188-581: Was located in Norfolk County just north of the City of Norfolk on the Elizabeth River , where one of the busiest coal export facilities in the world was built to reach Hampton Roads shipping. A residential section was also developed to house the families of the workers. Many early residents of Lambert's Point were involved in the coal industry. The company was famous for building its own steam locomotives ,
8280-469: Was painted to match the original yellow and black paint scheme worn by VGN's Fairbanks-Morse diesels. As of June 2023, the engine is in Altoona, PA being repainted with fresh paint. In 2015, a portion of the former Virginian in the state of West Virginia, was mothballed by Norfolk Southern due to a decline in coal shipments. In May 2016, WATCO Companies entered an agreement with Norfolk Southern to lease most of
8372-506: Was soon sprinkled with tipples, coke ovens, houses for workers, company stores and churches. In the four decades before the Crash of 1929 and subsequent Depression , these coal towns flourished. One example was the small community of Bramwell, West Virginia , which in its heyday boasted the highest per capita concentration of millionaires in the country. In 1886, the N&W tracks were extended directly to coal piers at Lambert's Point , which
8464-485: Was the location of a large equipment maintenance operation, with roundhouse, turntable, coaling and water facilities for servicing steam locomotives, and a large yard. Offices for the VGN's Norfolk Division were built by adding a second floor to the passenger station building a few years later. The Virginian Railway Company was formed in Virginia on March 8, 1907, to combine the Deepwater Railway in West Virginia and
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