VGN | History

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Virginian Railway - VGN

Historical Timeline of the Virginian Railway

Formation and construction (early 1900s)

  • 1902: William Nelson Page and industrialist Henry Huttleston Rogers begin forming the Tidewater Railway in Virginia and the Deepwater Railway in West Virginia.
  • 1907: The two roads officially merge to form the Virginian Railway (VGN).
    • Leader: William Nelson Page becomes the first president.
    • Ownership/Investment: Henry Huttleston Rogers secretly finances the entire railroad using his personal fortune, totaling over $30 million. This allows the VGN to be built without public debt.
  • 1909: Construction is completed, creating a 443-mile “Mountains to Sea” line.
    • The VGN is engineered for low grades to allow for efficient coal hauling, unlike its competitors, the Norfolk and Western (N&W) and Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O).
  • 1909: Henry Rogers dies just weeks after attending the railway’s completion ceremony in Norfolk. 

Electrification and expansion (1910s–1920s)

  • 1917: During World War I, the VGN is jointly operated with the N&W under federal wartime control.
  • 1922–1926: VGN electrifies a 134-mile section of its main line, spanning from Mullens, WV, to Roanoke, VA, to address the challenging grades in the Appalachian Mountains.
    • Financial Investment: The electrification project costs $15 million, a significant capital expenditure.
  • 1925: A new coal pier is built at Sewell’s Point to handle increased coal exports.
  • Late 1920s: VGN operates some of the largest and most powerful electric locomotives of the era. 

Depression and WWII (1930s–1940s)

  • 1930s: The Great Depression impacts financial performance, but coal traffic remains a steady source of revenue.
  • 1940s: During World War II, VGN’s strategic coal-hauling route is vital for the war effort. 

Dieselization and merger (1950s)

  • 1954: VGN begins transitioning from steam to diesel locomotives, purchasing units from Fairbanks-Morse.
  • 1956: The last passenger service on the VGN is discontinued.
  • 1957: The last steam locomotive is retired.
  • 1958: A merger with the rival Norfolk and Western (N&W) is proposed, citing significant cost savings and improved efficiency.
  • 1959: The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) approves the merger.
    • Acquisition: The VGN is absorbed into the N&W on December 1. 

Post-merger legacy (1960s–today)

  • 1962: N&W shuts down the former VGN electrification system.
  • 1963: The electric locomotives are sold to the New Haven Railroad.
  • 1966: The U.S. Navy purchases VGN’s Sewell’s Point terminal for expansion of Naval Station Norfolk.
  • 1970s: Parts of the former VGN line are abandoned due to traffic duplication with N&W lines.
  • 1982: N&W merges with Southern Railway to form Norfolk Southern (NS), which inherits the remaining VGN trackage.
  • 1990s: NS continues to use a significant portion of the former VGN main line for heavy coal traffic.
  • 2015: Norfolk Southern mothballs a section of the former VGN in West Virginia due to declining coal shipments.
  • 2016: WATCO Companies leases the mothballed section of the VGN line to serve three mines as the Kanawha River Railroad (KNWA).
  • Today:
    • Much of the former VGN main line in Virginia, especially between Norfolk and Roanoke, has been abandoned or sold.
    • The Virginian Railway Heritage Trail has been established to preserve surviving structures.
    • NS still operates the highly-efficient former VGN route in southern West Virginia.
    • The former VGN rail yards in Princeton, WV, are on the National Register of Historic Places.
    • The Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke preserves the last surviving VGN steam engine. 

Back to the Virginian Railway Home Page

For More Information – Sources and Resources

The following are excellent resources for those of you wanting to explore and learn more about the history and operation of the Appalachian Railroads. These sources of information also serve as reference and historical materials for Appalachian-Railroads.org. Much of the collective railroad history data points on this website are verified across multiple sources.

  • Personal Maps & Memorabilia: Documents, maps, timetables, and track charts
  • Associations, Historical Societies and their Archives
  • Archives of Appalachia: ETSU, Johnson City TN
  • Newspaper Articles: Newspapers.com
  • Magazines/Online: ‘Trains‘, ‘Classic Trains‘
  • Books
    • Drury: The Historical Guide to North American Railroads
    • Appalachian Region
      • Grant: ‘The Louisville, Cincinnati & Charleston Rail Road’
      • Graybeal: ‘The Railroads of Johnson City
      • Huddleston: ‘Appalachian Crossings – The Pocahontas Roads‘ and ‘Appalachian Conquest‘
      • Poole: ‘A History of Railroading in Western North Carolina‘
      • Timko and Young: ‘Appalchian Coal Mines and Railroads, Vol. 1, 2, & 3‘
      • Roberts: ‘Sand Patch, Clash of the Titans‘
      • Yanosey: ‘Tidewater Triangle’
    • Atlantic Coast Line Railroad
      • Calloway: ‘Atlantic Coast Line, The Diesel Years‘
      • Griffin: ‘Atlantic Coast Line, The Standard Railroad of the South‘
      • Goolsby: ‘Atlantic Coast Line Passenger Service, The Postwar Years‘
    • Baltimore & Ohio Railway
      • Jacobs: ‘The History of the Baltimore & Ohio’
      • McGuirk: ‘Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in the Potomac Valley‘
      • Ori, Salamon and Oroszi: Baltimore & Ohio/Reflections of the Capitol Dome‘ and ‘Baltimore & Ohio/Sunburst Trail to Chicago’
    • C&O Railway/Chessie System
      • Dixon: ‘Chesapeake & Ohio, Superpower to Diesels‘, Chesapeake & Ohio in the Coalfields, ‘C&O Allegheny Subdivision‘, and ‘Chesapeake & Ohio Railway – A Concise History and Fact Book‘, and ‘The Chessie Era’
      • Dorin: ‘The Chesapeake & Ohio Railway’
      • Huddleston: ‘Riding the New River Train‘
      • Ori – ‘Chessie System‘
      • Paton: ‘Allegheny with an A’
      • Turner: ‘Chessie’s Road‘
    • Clinchfield Railroad
      • Beach: ‘The Black Mountain Railway’
      • Goforth: ‘Building the Clinchfield‘ and ‘When Steam Ran the Clinchfield‘
      • Helm: ‘The Clinchfield Railroad in the Coal Fields‘
      • Irwin & Stahl: ‘The Last Empire Builder: The Life of George L. Carter‘
      • King: ‘Clinchfield Country‘
      • Marsh: ‘Clinchfield in Color‘
      • Poteat & Taylor: ‘The CSX Clinchfield Route in the 21st Century‘
      • Stevens & Peoples: ‘The Clinchfield No. 1 – Tennessee’s Legendary Steam Engine‘
      • Way: ‘The Clinchfield Railroad, the Story of a Trade Route Across the Blue Ridge Mountains‘
    • CSX Railroad
      • Springirth: ‘CSX Transportation Heritage‘
    • ET&WNC: Listed on the website’s ET&WNC pages
    • Interstate Railroad
      • Wolfe & Wolfe: ‘Appalachian Coal Hauler’
      • Wolfe: ‘The Interstate Railroad‘
    • L&N Railroad
      • Castner, Flanary & Dorin: Louisville & Nashville Railroad The Old Reliable‘
      • Flanary: The Louisville & Nashville Cumberland Valley Division
      • Flanary, Oroszi & McKee: ‘The Louisville & Nashville in the Appalachians‘
      • Oroszi & Flanary: ‘Dixie Lines, The Louisville & Nashville Railroad‘
    • NC&StL Railway
      • Prince: ‘Nashville Chattanooga & St Louis Railway‘
    • Norfolk Southern
      • Esposito: ‘Norfolk Southern Railroad’
      • Lindsey: ‘Norfolk Southern 1995 Review‘
    • Norfolk & Western Railway
      • Newton: ‘Rails Remembered, Volumes 1-6
      • Warden: ‘Norfolk & Western: Diesel’s Last Conquest‘ and ‘Norfolk & Western’s Passenger Service’
      • Wolfe, Wilson & Mandelkern: ‘Norfolk & Western’s Clinch Valley Line‘
    • Pennsylvania Railroad
      • Jacobs: ‘The History of the Pennsylvania Railroad‘
    • Seaboard Air Line, Seaboard Coast Line, Seaboard System
      • Calloway and Withers: ‘Seaboard Motive Power‘
      • Carleton: ‘Locomotives of the Seaboard System‘
      • Griffin: ‘Seaboard Coast Line and Family Lines Railroad‘ and ‘All Lines North of Raleigh‘
      • Johnson: ‘Through the Heart of the South‘
    • Southern Railway
      • Davis: The Southern Railway, Road of the Innovators‘
      • Flanary, Lindsey & Oroszi. The Southern Railway‘
      • Webb: ‘The Southern Railway System: An Illustrated History‘
      • Wolfe: ‘Southern Railway Appalachia Division‘
    • Virginian Railway
      • Reisweber: ‘Virginian Rails’
      • Wiley & Wallace: ‘The Virginian Railway Handbook‘
  • Online Article: Flanary: ‘The Quick Service Route, The Clinchfield Railroad‘; Scientific American: ‘The Costliest Railroad in America‘
  • Online Videos: Ken Marsh on Kingsport area railroads and region’s history Video #1 | Video #2:
  • Websites:

3Cs Websites

Appalachian-Railroads.org | Clinchfield.org | Southern-Railroads.org