Princeton Railroad Museum

Known as the "Richest Little Railroad in the World," the Virginian Railway was formed in 1907 through the marriage of the Deepwater Railway in West Virginia and the Tidewater Railway in Virginia. Financed by Henry H. Rogers, one of the wealthiest men in the world, the Virginian proved itself as a modern well engineered railroad that could operate more efficiently than its larger competitors. The Virginian Railway extended from Sewells Point, on Hampton Roads, Norfolk, Virginia, to Deepwater, West Virginia, a distance of 443 miles. It existed from 1909 until 1959, when it was bought out by Norfolk and Western.

Princeton Railroad Museum

WHAT was the Virginian Railway? It was men. It was machines. It was money to keep them both going. The Virginian was built early in the twentieth century from the West Virginia coal fields to the Virginia coast because one mail, Henry Huttleston Rogers, had foresight — and cash, too. Rogers was the Virginian, although he may not have been the absolute creator. He built the coal-hauler with his own money. He gave it the best equipment that his money could buy. He hired talented men. Rogers' activity was unusual in transportation annals and will never be duplicated. He wanted a railway, so he reached into his pockets and built it, keeping firmly in mind the axiom of the shortest distance between two points being a straight line. Mullens, Princeton, Roanoke, Victoria and Norfolk — they were the principal stations. In between were such communities as Lively, Coy, Fagg, Briery, Nutbush, Dolphin, Tinkling, Magnolia and Sunray. There was even one hamlet that may never be cited in volumes on manners, Lick Fork. When colorful designations were exhausted, Virginian men named stations for themselves. Adsit, for example, honored S. M. Adsit, general passenger agent. Huttleston was Henry Rogers' middle name. Yet the Virginian was built by the legions of men who never had towns named for them. The Virginian was a product of their hopes, their disappointments, their toil, their shortcomings, their pranks, their mistakes, their very lives. The Virginian combined the dramatic and the trivial in its makeup and here, then, is how it happened — its high moments in text and pictures, its condensed corporate developments and its genealogy of locomotives. The Virginian was a Real Railroad, one of immense equipment and wealth and just as rich in the vital human element.

H. Reid - The Virginian Railway