Southern Surprise
A hot hazy late spring day finds the typical collection of loaded coal trains tied down in Norfolk Southern’s South Yard at about MP 243.2 just west of where the Altavista District ends and it becomes the Roanoke Terminal District. But that is just the modern names for this line that was historically the property of the Virginian Railway. The VGN was a small but might Class 1 that opened in 1909 and was financed by the fortune of Henry Huttleson Rogers of Fairhaven, Massachusetts who was one of the richest men in the world at the time as principal of Standard Oil.
I won’t go into to much history but in addition to oil and pipelines (he first conceived the idea of long pipelines for transporting oil and gas) he had his hand in railroading as a close associate of E.H. Harriman. Rogers sat on the board of many of the great railroads of that era but arguably the VGN would come to be his crowning achievement that he financed almost entirely by himself. The road grew to 600 miles and was an extremely well engineered route designed with one purpose, moving West Virginia coal to tidewater on Hampton Roads in direct competition with it’s larger and largely parallel neighbor the Norfolk and Western.
Profitable and progressive the VGN electrified a 134 mile stretch of its mainline across the mounts from Mullens, WV to Roanoke in 1925. The VGN’s half century of independence came to a close in 1959 when the N&W merged it and on June 30, 1962 the wires were de-energized. But over the ensuing decades much of the VGN mainline remained an important component of the N&W and successor NS in continuing the task for what it was built. And, here more than a half century after the pantographs were lowered for the last time some catenary poles continue to support wires that span the yard here as a reminder of that earlier era.
NS 8099 seen here beneath the concrete arch Jefferson Street overpass is a three year old GE ES44AC delivered in this scheme as part of the NS’ 40th anniversary celebration that saw 20 modern units emerge in historic schemes representing predecessor components of the giant Class 1.
Roanoke, Virginia
Sunday May 31, 2015
Southern Surprise
A hot hazy late spring day finds the typical collection of loaded coal trains tied down in Norfolk Southern’s South Yard at about MP 243.2 just west of where the Altavista District ends and it becomes the Roanoke Terminal District. But that is just the modern names for this line that was historically the property of the Virginian Railway. The VGN was a small but might Class 1 that opened in 1909 and was financed by the fortune of Henry Huttleson Rogers of Fairhaven, Massachusetts who was one of the richest men in the world at the time as principal of Standard Oil.
I won’t go into to much history but in addition to oil and pipelines (he first conceived the idea of long pipelines for transporting oil and gas) he had his hand in railroading as a close associate of E.H. Harriman. Rogers sat on the board of many of the great railroads of that era but arguably the VGN would come to be his crowning achievement that he financed almost entirely by himself. The road grew to 600 miles and was an extremely well engineered route designed with one purpose, moving West Virginia coal to tidewater on Hampton Roads in direct competition with it’s larger and largely parallel neighbor the Norfolk and Western.
Profitable and progressive the VGN electrified a 134 mile stretch of its mainline across the mounts from Mullens, WV to Roanoke in 1925. The VGN’s half century of independence came to a close in 1959 when the N&W merged it and on June 30, 1962 the wires were de-energized. But over the ensuing decades much of the VGN mainline remained an important component of the N&W and successor NS in continuing the task for what it was built. And, here more than a half century after the pantographs were lowered for the last time some catenary poles continue to support wires that span the yard here as a reminder of that earlier era.
NS 8099 seen here beneath the concrete arch Jefferson Street overpass is a three year old GE ES44AC delivered in this scheme as part of the NS’ 40th anniversary celebration that saw 20 modern units emerge in historic schemes representing predecessor components of the giant Class 1.
Roanoke, Virginia
Sunday May 31, 2015