Norfolk & Western

Frederick J. Kimball, whose interest in geology was responsible for the opening of the Pocahontas coalfields in western Virginia and West Virginia, pushed NW lines through the wilds of West Virginia, north to Columbus and Cincinnati, Ohio, and south to Durham and Winston-Salem, N.C. This gave the railroad the route structure it was to use for more than 60 years. The opening of the coalfields made NW prosperous and Pocahontas coal world-famous. It fueled half the world's navies and today stokes steel mills and power plants all over the globe. A perennial leader in operating efficiency, NW aimed to provide "Precision Transportation" and justifiably asserted the promotional slogan, "There's No Stopping Us."

Norfolk Southern corporate history

The Norfolk and Western Railway was formed by more than 200 railroad mergers between 1838 and 1982. It had headquarters in Roanoke, Va., for most of its 150 year existence. The company was famous for manufacturing steam locomotives and rolling stock in-house at its Roanoke Shops. Around 1960, N&W was the last major American railroad to convert from steam to diesel motive power. Beginning in 1959, a series of mergers brought the Virginian, Wasbash, AC&Y, other mid-western regionals into the expanding N&W system, which would become a part of the Norfolk Southern system in the 1980s.