Virginia Central Railroad

Virginia Central Railroad was chartered as the Louisa Railroad in 1836 by the Virginia Board of Public Works and had its name changed to Virginia Central Railroad in 1850. It connected with the Orange and Alexandria Railroad at Gordonsville in 1854.

The eastern terminus of the Virginia Central was originally at Hanover Junction (now known as Doswell with the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad. The charter of that line protected it from construction of a parallel competitor, and a Virginia Supreme Court decision was necessary before the Virginia Central was allowed to extend its tracks easterly through Hanover and Henrico Counties to reach Richmond.

From Gordonsville, the Virginia Central was originally planned to connect Eastern Virginia with Harrisonburg, crossing the Blue Ridge at Swift Run Gap, but construction costs were prohibitive. Instead, the route was redirected to Charlottesville.

The Commonwealth of Virginia, always keen to help with "internal improvements" not only owned a portion of Virginia Central stock, but incorporated and financed the Blue Ridge Railroad to accomplish the hard and expensive task of crossing the first mountain barrier to the west. Rather than attempting the more formidable Swift Run Gap, under the leadership of the great early civil engineer Claudius Crozet, the state-owned Blue Ridge Railroad built over the mountains at the next gap to the south, Rockfish Gap near Afton Mountain, using four tunnels, including the 4,263-foot Blue Ridge Tunnel at the top of the pass, then one of the longest tunnels in the world.

While the Blue Ridge Mountain section was being breached, the Virginia Central was busy building westward from the west foot of the mountains, across the Shenandoah Valley through Staunton, Virginia|Staunton and a water gap at Goshen, Virginia|Goshen at Great North Mountain, reaching a point known as Jackson's River Station, at the foot of the Alleghany Mountains (note that in Virginia Alleghany is spelled with an "a"), in 1856. This is the site that would be called Clifton Forge later.

The eventually road connected Richmond to the southwestern Shenandoah Valley at the point where the proposed Covington and Ohio Railroad would have started. To finish its line across the mountainous territory of the Alleghany Plateau (known in old Virginia as the "Transmountaine"), the Commonwealth again chartered a state-subsidized railroad called the Covington and Ohio Railroad . This company completed important grading work on the Alleghany grade and did considerable work on numerous tunnels over the mountains and in the west. It also did a good deal of roadway work around Charleston on the Kanawha River. Then the War Between the States intervened, and work was stopped on the westward expansion.

During the American Civil War the Virginia Central was one of the Confederacy's most important lines, carrying food from the Shenandoah region to Richmond, and ferrying troops and supplies back and forth as the campaigns surrounded its tracks frequently. On more than one occasion it was used in actual tactical operations, transporting troops directly to the battlefield. The Blue Ridge Tunnels and the Virginia Central were a key tools in the fast mobilization of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson's famous "foot calvary". But, it was a prime target for Federal armies, and by the end of the war had only about five miles of track still in operation, and $40 in gold in its treasury.

After the War, Collis P. Huntington reorganized the Virginia Central and its affiliates into his new Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, and westward construction resumed. Huntington was aware of the potential to ship eastbound coal and also began acquiring property in Warwick County in eastern Virginia to extend his line to what would become new coal piers at Newport News. Under Huntington's leadership, the goal points of the Ohio River and Hampton Roads (at Newport News) were both reached.

See article on Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, successor to the Virginia Central Railroad.

Other uses of the Virginia Central name

• Many years after the original Virginia Central became part of the Chesapeake and Ohio in the 1870s, another railroad between Fredericksburg and Orange used the name "Virginia Central." The Potomac, Fredericksburg, & Piedmont Railroad (PF&P RR) operated 38 miles of 3 foot gauge railroad between Fredericksburg (with a connection to the Richmond, Fredericksburg, & Potomac Railroad ) and Orange (with a connection to the Orange & Alexandria railroad). It operated as narrow gauge until after World War 1. In 1926, the line was standard gauged and the name changed to the Virginia Central Railway. In 1938, the entire line was abandoned except for a two mile segment in Fredericksburg which lasted into the 1970s.

• In the 1990s, an excursion company headed by Jack Showalter assumed the historic name Virginia Central Railroad, and operated trips on CSX Transportation tracks from a base in Staunton, Virginia. Increased liability insurance requirements forced suspension of the trips and the equipment into storage. In February, 2005, preparations were underway to relocate some of the historic rolling stock of the excursion company to the Science Museum of Virginia in Richmond.