Railroads of Virginia

Virginia was a farming colony until 1776, and it's primary transportation requirement was to move tobacco leaves from farm fields to Europe. Large plantations and small farms produced a surplus of one staple crop, a crop that was good only for export. You can't eat tobacco, so Virginians had to ship it to the customers overseas.

In the 1600's and 1700's, plantations were carved out of the wooded countryside, and early plantations were concentrated along rivers. Every plantation in Tidewater developed a wharf to ship tobacco directly to England - hauling 1,000-pound hogsheads of tobacco along muddy roads from the tobacco barns to the wharf was hard enough. Roads were developed so people could walk or ride from farms to churches and the county courthouse, but there was little investment in upgrading the roads in Tidewater so Virginians could to move freight in wagons.

Once settlement moved upstream past the Fall Line, however, the need for better roads increased. By the 1850's, the new technology of wood-burning locomotives and iron rails made it feasible to establish commercial centers inland, away from the rivers. Virginia's railroads were designed primarily to transport farm products to urban centers, as freight railroads bring raw goods from the "hinterland" to port cities and shipping manufactured goods back in return. Only the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac (RF&P) was expected to make most of its income from transporting people.

The Charleston (SC) to Augusta (GA) railroad was the first large-scale use of the steam-powered transport. It was a classic case of one port city intercepting the trade of another. The railroad enabled Charleston to "steal" traffic from Savannah, when farmers reached the falls on the Savannah River at Augusta.

Alexandria learned the lesson well. It intercepted the farmer trade of Fredericksburg that might have gone downstream along the Rappahannock River to Fredericksburg, plus some business that might have gone down the Shenandoah Valley to Baltimore. The city built the Orange and Alexandria Railroad south along the eastern side of the Blue Ridge into the headwaters of the Rappahannock River. Alexandria also built the Manassas Gap Railroad across the mountains and south to Mount Jackson on the west side of the Blue Ridge, drawing some customers that might otherwise have used traditional routes to Baltimore or even Philadelphia.

The Confederate army built the first military railroad between Manassas and Centreville, the front lines until March 1862. Railroads at Manassas, Fredericksburg, Petersburg, Richmond, Lynchburg, and after the Civil War - Roanoke stimulated development as well as controversy. North Carolina strongly resisted construction of the the Piedmont Railroad, connecting Danville and Greensboro. That state wanted the trade from its Piedmont to go through Wilmington, NC rather than a Virginia port. The "states rights"-oriented Confederacy ultimately forced construction of the Piedmont Railroad, over North Carolina's objections, as a military necessity.

In the days before "union" stations, draymen earned a good living hauling freight by horse and wagon from one railroad's terminal to another, usually just several blocks away. It was inefficient, but each railroad was independent and the concept of a trade network based on rail transportation (and reflected in consolidation of separate railroad companies after the Civil War) was still emerging.

In 1861, Robert E. Lee warned that the failure to connect the lines of the Alexandria, Loudoun and Hampshire Railroad with the tracks of the Orange and Alexandria would be costly. When the Union invaded Alexandria, two locomotives were stranded on the AL&H. The Confederacy had to haul them overland across the hills of Fauquier county, to Piedmont Station (today known as Delaplane) on the Manassas Gap Railroad.

railroads in Virginia - can you identify the nodes at Richmond and Petersburg?
Source: National Atlas

Not every railroad intersection developed into a town - Doswell, for example, has remained a tiny crossroads community for 175 years.

Roanoke and Manassas grew from the start as towns where two railroads connected. However, some towns with county courthouses were completely bypassed, leaving the community to stagnate.

The Orange and Alexandria Railroad followed the flattest path south and bypassed the court houses built on the tops of hills - Fairfax Court House (Fairfax), Brentsville (Prince William County), and Warrenton (Fauquier). Warrenton later managed to get a spur line connecting it to the railroad. In Prince William County, however, Manassas was able to get the courthouse moved so the government center was combined with the county's commercial center.

historic Virginia Central/RF&P rail interchange at Doswell (Hanover County)

railroads in Virginia, 1855 (note that Roanoke did not exist before the war)
Source: Library of Congress - Williams' commercial map of the United States and Canada with railroads, routes, and distances (1855)

In today's economy, dominated more by services rather than manufacturing, it helps to have an airport and a university if you want to become a commercial center - but it still helps to have freight and passenger rail capabilities too...