The Virginian Railway was a Class I railroad located in Virginia and West Virginia in the United States. The VGN was created to transport high quality "smokeless" bituminous coal from southern West Virginia to port at Hampton Roads.
The Norfolk and Western Railway, commonly called the N&W, was a US class I railroad, formed by more than 200 railroad mergers between 1838 and 1982. It was headquartered in Roanoke, Virginia, for most of its existence. Its motto was "Precision Transportation"; it had a variety of nicknames, including "King Coal" and "British Railway of America".
William Nelson Page was an American civil engineer and industrialist. He was active in the Virginias following the U.S. Civil War. Page was widely known as a metallurgical expert by other industry leaders and investors as well as state and federal authorities.
Frederick James Kimball was a civil engineer. He was an early president of the Norfolk and Western Railway and helped develop the Pocahontas coalfields in Virginia and West Virginia.
The Chesterfield Railroad was located in Chesterfield County, Virginia. It was a 13-mile (21-kilometer) long mule-and-gravity powered line that connected the Midlothian coal mines with wharves that were located at the head of navigation on the James River just below the Fall Line at Manchester. It began operating in 1831 as Virginia's first common carrier railroad.
Anthracite iron or anthracite "pig iron" is the substance created by the smelting together of anthracite coal and iron ore, that is using anthracite coal instead of charcoal to smelt iron ores—and was an important historic advance in the late-1830s, enabling great acceleration the industrial revolution in Europe and North America.
Building the Virginian Railway began as a project to create an 80-mile (130 km)-long short line railroad to provide access for shipping of untapped bituminous coal reserves in southern West Virginia early in the 20th century. After facing a refusal of the big railroads to negotiate equitable rates to interchange and forward the coal for shipping, the owners and their investors expanded their scheme and built a U.S. Class I railroad which extended from some of the most rugged terrain of West Virginia over 400 miles (640 km) to reach port at Hampton Roads near Norfolk, Virginia.
The Richmond and Petersburg Railroad moved passengers and goods between Richmond and Petersburg from 1838 to 1898. It survived the American Civil War and eventually merged into the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad in 1900.
The Petersburg Railroad ran from Petersburg, Virginia, south to Garysburg, North Carolina, from which it ran to Weldon via trackage rights over the Seaboard and Roanoke Railroad.
The Lehigh Crane Iron Company was a major ironmaking firm in the Lehigh Valley from its founding in 1839 until its sale in 1899. It was founded under the patronage of Josiah White and Erskine Hazard, and financed by their Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company, which hoped to promote the then-novel technique of smelting iron ore with anthracite coal. This was an important cost and energy savings technique, since either an expensive charcoaling nor coke producing process and transport costs was totally eliminated so produced a great acceleration in the underpinnings of the American industrial revolution.
Grenville Lewis, Jr. was an American engineer, cattle rancher, and college football coach. He served as the head coach at the Maryland Agricultural College.
John Wesley Gephart was a Bellefonte, Pennsylvania lawyer and industrialist. Educated in Bellefonte and at Princeton University, Gephart's diligence and intelligence were already marked when he was admitted to the bar at the end of 1876 and joined the Bellefonte law practice of James A. Beaver in 1877. He took a prominent part in the civic and moral life of the town, and enjoyed a reputation as a skillful lawyer and charismatic orator. In 1891, he became president of the newly organized Valentine Iron Company, and thereafter became increasingly devoted to furthering industry and commerce in his home town. He laid aside his legal practice in 1893, after becoming the superintendent of the new Central Railroad of Pennsylvania, to become a full-time industrialist.
The Huckleberry Trail is a multipurpose trail that measures almost 15 miles in length in Montgomery County, Virginia, connecting the towns of Blacksburg and Christiansburg. The trail is 12 feet (3.7 m) wide with an asphalt surface.
Cardiff was a company town located in Roane County, Tennessee, United States. Established in the early 1890s by New England investors, the town was to house workers and managers for a large-scale mining operation that sought to utilize the abundant iron ore and coal resources along nearby Walden Ridge. The town was named for Cardiff, Wales, as its planners believed it would someday rival the Welsh city as a mining mecca. The town's development was thwarted, however, when the Panic of 1893 left its parent company in financial ruin. Little remains of the town today.
Moorefield and North Branch Turnpike was a turnpike in the U.S. state of Virginia built to facilitate travel and commerce between the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad at Green Spring on the North Branch Potomac River and Moorefield. Today, Green Spring Road, Harriott-Wappocomo Road, and West Virginia Route 28 encompass most of the Moorefield and North Branch Turnpike's original route.
Henry Ticknor DeBardeleben was an American coal magnate from Alabama.
In 1886, Randolph Harrison, of the Virginia department of Agriculture, cited Cumberland Mining Company, stating that the United States had purchased stock in the Brighthope Railway. He continued by citing their assertion that extending the railway into Cumberland would increase the value of farms there because they could sell consumer agricultural products such as fruit, dairy and vegetables to all markets of Virginia. The Brighthope Railway was founded in 1877 by the creditors of the Clover Hill Railroad who bought that railroad when the Clover Hill Railroad went bankrupt. The Brighthope Railway continued in the role of the Clover Hill Railroad, hauling coal from the Clover Hill Pits at Winterpock, Virginia. In addition to coal, the Bright Hope Railway transported timber and agricultural products and had passenger service. The Bright Hope Railway was narrowed from standard gauge to narrow gauge and rerouted in 1881. In 1886, much of the southern rails were changed to standard gauge. The Brighthope Railway was not changed back.
The Clover Hill Railroad was a railroad company that operated for 36 years in central Virginia near Richmond. The railroad was created to carry coal most efficiently from the Clover Hill Pits in Winterpock, Virginia, to further transportation points in Chester, Virginia, where it could be sold for a better price than on the Appomattox River in the Piedmont region. This made the railroad important to the Confederacy in the Civil War to ensure a supply of coal for munitions and iron working. The mines were dangerous for the miners, and many accidents occurred. The railroad had to be sold when coal mining declined so that new owners could find other uses for the railroad.
The Clover Hill Pits are a number of coal shafts and mines that operated in the Southside area of Richmond, Virginia from 1837 until around 1883.
The Upper Appomattox Canal Navigation system allowed farmers who took their wheat and corn to mills on the Appomattox River, as far way as Farmville, Virginia, to ship the flour all the way to Petersburg from 1745 to 1891. The system included a navigation, modifications on the Appomattox River, a Canal around the falls Petersburg, and a turning basin in Petersburg to turn their narrow long boats around, unload the farm products from upstream and load up with manufactured goods from Petersburg. In Petersburg, workers could put goods on ships bound for the Chesapeake Bay and load goods from far away for Farmville and plantations upstream. Canal boats would return up river with manufactured goods. People who could afford it, rode in boats on the canal as the fastest and most comfortable ride. The river was used for transportation and shipping goods for over 100 years.
