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    Norfolk and Western Railway Stations and Depots
    Norfolk and Western Railway Stations and Depots
    Norfolk and Western Railway Stations and Depots
    Ebook167 pages53 minutes

    Norfolk and Western Railway Stations and Depots

    By C. Nelson Harris

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    About this ebook

    The tracks of the Norfolk and Western Railway snaked through Virginia s Shenandoah Valley and the coalfields of West Virginia. For nearly 100 years, the Norfolk and Western brought freight, passengers, and economic vitality to large cities and rural mining towns. At each stop was the depot or station; some stations were large, architecturally ornate structures that represented the muscular energy and romantic era of this great steam railway with its famed J-class engines. In other places there were small wooden depots that depicted the hard-scrabble life of the mining communities, tucked amid steep mountain valleys that were indelibly shaped by the railway s presence. Today some of those structures remain, while many disappeared when the railway ceased passenger or other service. The Norfolk and Western eventually merged with the Southern Railway, and though the trains of the Norfolk Southern still run along those same lines, they simply pass by where they used to stop many years ago.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateDec 7, 2009
    ISBN9781439637760
    Norfolk and Western Railway Stations and Depots
    Author

    C. Nelson Harris

    Author C. Nelson Harris has carefully selected archival images from the renowned historical Norfolk and Western photograph collection housed at Virginia Tech. These images, many never before published, date back nearly a century and convey the storied past of life along the rails.

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    • 4/5
      I enjoyed looking through this a lot as there are a number of these stations I either visited or arrived and departed at several times in my lifetime. The Arcadia books are always fun, in my opinion.

    Book preview

    Norfolk and Western Railway Stations and Depots - C. Nelson Harris

    work.

    INTRODUCTION

    For nearly a century, the Norfolk and Western Railway (N&W) served communities primarily in North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, and West Virginia before the railway’s merger with the Southern Railway to form the present-day Norfolk Southern Corporation.

    The N&W emerged from the defunct Atlantic, Mississippi, and Ohio Railroad (AM&O), which had been formed in 1870 by the consolidation of three smaller railroads—the Norfolk and Petersburg, the Southside, and the Virginia and Tennessee.

    The N&W began when Clarence Clark of Philadelphia purchased the bankrupt AM&O at an auction in Richmond, Virginia, on February 10, 1881, for a bid of $8,505,000. Shortly thereafter, Clark and his brothers changed the name of the railroad to the Norfolk and Western for reasons not clearly known.

    For the first several years, the N&W hauled mostly cotton and other agricultural goods, but a decade later, with the development of the coal reserves of West Virginia, the N&W began to haul primarily black gold. With that, the railway began its expansion and storied history as one of the great railroads of the American East.

    To begin the history of the N&W, one needs to do some railroad genealogy. The N&W’s earliest predecessor was the City Point Railroad. This railroad was chartered in 1836 by the Virginia Legislature and opened on September 7, 1838. This date marked the birth of the N&W as, in 1938, the N&W would officially celebrate a Century of Service. The City Point was a small but important rail line, being a 9-mile line from City Point along the James River to Petersburg, Virginia. City Point marked the point along the James where sailing vessels had to stop because of narrow and shallower waters, leaving Petersburg some distance away. The building of the rail line, therefore, allowed cargo to continue to be moved. The City Point Railroad actually became involved in some nonrailroad transportation enterprises along the James River as well. For a variety of economic reasons, the City Point Railroad had to be reorganized, and in 1847, the line was acquired by the City of Petersburg and became known as the Appomattox Railroad. The Appomattox Railroad was then purchased from the city in 1854 by the Southside Railroad, which was looking to have a line to City Point.

    The Southside Railroad was chartered by the Virginia Legislature in 1846 for the purpose of building a rail line from Petersburg east to what is now Blackstone, Virginia. It was called Southside because it was to run south of the James River. At about this same time, in 1849, another railroad was chartered, the Petersburg and Lynchburg Railroad, for the purpose of building a line linking those two cities. The two railroads were, in 1850, chartered to form one railroad, the Southside. By late 1854, the Southside was completed, running some 123 miles.

    During this same time period but unrelated to the activities of the Southside enterprise, business leaders in Norfolk, Virginia, were deeply concerned that economic opportunities for them and their community were being lost to other regions and ports. Thus, after one failed attempt, the Commonwealth of Virginia granted a charter for the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad (N&P). Among those drawn to this development was William Mahone, a railroad engineer and later a Civil War officer, whose name would be associated with N&W. Mahone’s successful design of a track bed across the Dismal Swamp was unique for its day and contributed greatly to the development of the Norfolk and Petersburg. The N&P was completed on September 1, 1858, and was one of the most expensive railroads to be constructed during that era.

    While Norfolk and Petersburg were getting their railroads, Lynchburg was continuing to struggle with rail service, though there had been many attempts. After much lobbying, however, a charter was granted for the creation of the Lynchburg and Tennessee Railroad in 1836. The hope was to link up with other planned railroads in Tennessee. Ultimately this ended in failure, continuing a frustrating pattern. In 1849, with the same goals in mind, the charter for the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad (V&T) was issued. An elaborate ceremony on January 16, 1850, marked the official start of the railroad in Lynchburg. For the next few years, the V&T engaged in construction of its line, with progress being reported by the various newspapers of the day. Finally, by 1861, the V&T line was completed, but war was imminent.

    E. F. Pat Striplin, in his work, The Norfolk and Western: A History, succinctly describes the Civil War’s influence as follows: The impact of the Civil War on the three small predecessors of the present Norfolk and Western was catastrophic. Not only were the lines routinely attacked by Union forces, but the Confederate government paid very little reimbursement to the railroads for use of their lines and equipment to move men and material. By war’s end, the rail infrastructure in Virginia was severely disrupted, and the finances of railroads were in shambles. To prevent the small railroads from being taken over by Northern investors, namely the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O), consolidation became a key strategy. On April 18, 1867, the Virginia Legislature passed the Southside Consolidation Act, at the behest of William Mahone and others, resulting in the merger of the Norfolk and Petersburg, the Southside, and the Virginia and Tennessee Railroads. While this was necessary, Mahone had a legion of critics

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