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Virginian Era, The by Lloyd D Lewis Soft Cover Copyright 1992 60 pages
The Virginian Era by Lloyd D Lewis
Soft Cover
Copyright 1992
60 pages
CONTENTS
Introduction 1
Sewalls Point and Norfolk 5
Norfolk to Victoria 11
Victoria to Roanoke 17
Roanoke 21
Roanoke to Elmore 25
Princeton 34
Elmore & West 38
Rolling Stock 57
This is a pictorial remembrance of The Virginian Railway, a line that was unique in many ways, and for its size holds a remarkable place in railway history. The photos in this book are arranged east-to-west geographically.
This small maverick Class I carrier of West Virginia bituminous coal and its two predecessors existed for nearly six decades as one of the richest little railroads in the world. The line has been gone now for more than half that time-almost 33 years since it merged into the Norfolk & Western Railway (itself now part of Norfolk Southern) on December 1, 1959.
But for such a small railroad-only 596.6 miles long at best through the two Virginias-the Virginian (abbreviated VGN and properly spelled with an uppercase "T" in "The") was a true industry leader for several reasons. These included profitability, efficiency, the highest construction standards of the era, and that immeasurable quality called "family spirit" that made the other three work. It also was sought after by its two larger competitors, N&W and Chesapeake & Ohio (now part of CSX Transportation). These three lines were for many years known collectively as the "Pocahontas Roads," named for a top grade of soft coal, which itself was named for the Indian princess of early Virginia fame.
Not only was the Virginian built between its larger competitors in the southern West Virginia coalfields, it was built in spite of them. Planned and surveyed in secret, its right-of-way was literally fought over with fists in at least two instances-at Jenny's Gap, West Virginia, about 1905 with C&O forces and a couple of years later between Rock and Matoaka, West Virginia, with N&W people.
VGN's builder, Standard Oil millionaire Henry Huttleston Rogers, and its officers, assured history there would be hardly anything ordinary or usual about the Virginian, nothing one would suspect of a small railroad, at any rate. They bought huge locomotives of all types, ran some of the heaviest trains in the world, both bought and built big coal cars, and constructed tall, strong bridges and long tunnels.
All this together meant the "solidest" railroad in America. In 1958, its last full year of operation, VGN was "as usual, the best American proof of the efficiency of the railroad per se." (This was Editor David P. Morgan writing in Trains Magazine). Its operating ratio was always among the lowest in the industry, being in the mid 40s and low 50s all during the Great Depression, going into the high 50s and 60s after World War II and back down to 46.5 in 1957 and 51.1 in 1958. Outstanding for a two-state railroad with about 3,500 employees that hauled virtually only one thing-coal.
VGN's efficiency of operation was known the world around because Mr. Rogers ordered that only the best engineering and construction techniques be used for his railroad. The money for all this was from Rogers' own "deep pockets" until the financial Panic of 1907 forced him to raise funds on the open market. The stress associated with this crowning achievement of his life well may have caused his demise in May 1909 at 69 years of age, only six weeks before the July 1 official opening of his railway for through passenger service all the way from Deepwater, West Virginia, to Sewalls Point near Norfolk, Virginia, 441 miles of main line.
He did get one trip over the entire road. The month before he died he and his good friend Mark Twain and a troupe of others rode the line westbound on a special train. This was also the only time Rogers used his private car, the 65-foot-long, double-ended, one-bedroom Dixie built by Pullman in 1906 as one of the very last all-wood business cars. The Dixie lasted into maintenance-of-way service as a storekeeper's car at VGN's only shop town, Princeton, West Virginia, and was donated to the new Kentucky Railway Museum in Louisville in October 1959, just before the N&W merger. Ironically, the car rotted away after it was damaged during the 1964 Ohio River flood, and was finally scrapped in 1989: a bitter end to a significant car.
The Virginian ran eastward from the coalfields of southern West Virginia to its two coal piers at Sewalls Point at Norfolk. The map shows that the railroad looked somewhat like a multi-pronged pitchfork curved near the top of the handle and laid across two states.
It wasn't built to serve cities; it was built for a single purpose: to haul coal eastbound to piers at Hampton Roads, North America's largest ice-free harbor, in the shortest distance possible. Some coal went west to the C&O at Deepwater, Gilbert, and Stone Coal Junction, and the N&W at Gilbert, all in West Virginia. More coal began going north and west after completion in 1931 of the bridge over the Kanawha River from West Deepwater to connect with the New York Central (now Conrail) at DB Tower. But most movement was eastbound to Sewalls Point for both export and coastwise shipping.
In fact, about 90-95 percent of what VGN hauled was southern West Virginia bituminous coal, some of the highest quality that money could buy. Most of the rest was made up of merchandise freight, including cement, pulpwood and automobile parts. Other large on-line, non-coal shippers included the Celanese Corporation plant at Celco (obvious derivation) on the New River opposite Pearisburg, Virginia, and the American Viscose chemical complex in South Roanoke.
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