Virginian Railway

The Virginian Railway (AAR reporting marks VGN) 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.

Early in the 20th century, William Nelson Page, a civil engineer and coal mining manager, joined forces with a silent partner, industrialist financier Henry Huttleston Rogers (a principal of Standard Oil and one of the wealthiest men in the world), to develop the Deepwater Railway, a modest 85-mile long short line railroad to access untapped bituminous coal reserves in some of the most rugged sections of southern West Virginia. When Page was blocked by collusion of the bigger railroads, who refused to grant reasonable rates to interchange the coal traffic, he did not give up as they no doubt had anticipated. As he continued building the original project, using Rogers' resources and attorneys to form another intrastate railroad, they quietly secured the right-of-way all the way across Virginia for the Tidewater Railway to reach Hampton Roads.

The two projects were legally joined and renamed the Virginian Railway in early 1907. Despite efforts to stop them, they then built the "Mountains to Sea" railroad right under the noses of the big railroads and the elite group of a few industrialists (so-called "robber barons") who controlled them. Completed in 1909, the Virginian Railway was largely financed through Rogers' personal fortune. It was a modern well-engineered railroad with all-new infrastructure and could operate more efficiently than its larger competitors.

Throughout a profitable 50-year history, the VGN continued the Page-Rogers philosophy of "paying up front for the best". It achieved best efficiencies in the mountains, rolling piedmont, and flat tidewater terrain. Known for operating the largest and best steam, electric, and diesel motive power, it became nicknamed "Richest Little Railroad in the World." Merged into the Norfolk and Western Railway in 1959, a large portion of the former VGN remains in service in the 21st century for the Norfolk Southern Railway, a Class I railroad headquartered in Norfolk a few blocks from the former Virginian Railway offices in Norfolk Terminal Station.

Two year after the merger, the VGN began gaining new life in a book, as it was presented as classic story of competitive business intrigue mixed with a story-telling writing style about the lore of the railroad and its people. The Virginian Railway, written by author and historian H. Reid, was first published in 1961, and has been reprinted a number of times in years since. First and second editions of the book have become collectible items, among other relics of the VGN. Although one of the smaller fallen flags of U.S. railroads, the VGN continues over 47 years later to have an amazingly loyal following of former employees, modelers, authors, photographers, historians and preservationists. Early in the 21st century, many of these now belong to Virginian Railway (VGN) Enthusiasts, which is one of the Internet's most vibrant Yahoo! Railway Enthusiast online groups. A group of retirees in Roanoke, Virginia meet each week and answer questions from a worldwide base of over 700 members. Annual seminars have a growing attendance and preservation activities have been increasing, even as the VGN itself fades into history.