The Virginian Railway 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.
History
Early in 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 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 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, 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 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.
Building the Virginian Railway The Virginian Railway (VGN) was conceived early in the 20th century by two men. One 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, the Virginian was built mostly for coal and was built as straight and steady in grade as possible.
Partnership: The idea man from Ansted and a self-made multi-millionaire 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 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 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 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 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, 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.
Deepwater Railway and Tidewater Railway 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 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, a rural location where a new coal pier was located on the harbor near Norfolk.
Victoria is created
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 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.
1907: Virginian railway is born The Virginian Railway Company was formed in Virginia on March 8, 1907, to combine the Deepwater Railway in West Virginia and 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, 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 was continued on the railroad until it was completed early in 1909.
Last spike, celebrations 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 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 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.
Operating and Electrifying "the Richest Little Railroad in the World"
Mr. Rogers left his heirs and employees with 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 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: 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 a cost of $15 million, equal to $ 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.