15 December 1890: The Shenandoah Valley Railway is sold to the Norfolk and Western Railway.

Construction on the SVRR began in 1879, with the completion of the Waynesboro-Hagerstown, Maryland component in 1881. A westward connection to Roanoke and the N&W would be completed in 1882.

By 1885, the SVRR was in receivership. It would remain so until its reorganization in September 1890 as the SVRY, after a foreclosure sale. Three months later, the Norfolk and Western Railway would acquire the line, providing single-line service to Hagerstown. Once in Hagerstown, connections could be made with the Pennsylvania Railroad for access to Northeastern markets.

So far as I understand it, the old SVRY is still valuable in its third century of existence, serving today's Norfolk Southern Railway.

UPDATE: I did some more digging, and came up with a bit more information that I thought useful.

As the rails lie, there are 239 miles in the N&W Shenandoah Division between Roanoke and Hagerstown. Scheduled passenger service for the spring of 1899 consisted of two trains, 3/4 running between Hagerstown and Roanoke, and 27/28 running between Hagerstown and Shenandoah.¹ A quick bit of very rough math---not taking into account any time for stops---suggests that 3/4, on an 8.5 hour schedule, averaged 28MPH. Trains 27/28 needed four hours to cover 107 miles, for an average speed of 27MPH.

For what it's worth, Roanoke-New York City and Bristol-New York City through service was provided for some time via the Shenandoah Division and the PRR northward. When the PRR discontinued its part of this service in 1962, the N&W cooperated with the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway to continue the New York connection. Sleeping cars from the then-Train 1/2 would be attached to the C&O's Fast Flying Virginian, ostensibly to head north to Washington Union Station for delivery to the Pennsylvania.

Information for the update came from George Elwood and Norfolk and Western Passenger Service 1946-1971 by W.E. Warden and K.L. Miller.

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¹ These train numbers are not to be confused with later uses. Numbers 3/4 would later be reassigned to The Pocahontas, which began running Norfolk-Cincinnati/Columbus in 1926.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 02:16 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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