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Norfolk And Western Railway

Norfolk and Western Railway

The Norfolk and Western Railway (N&W) , a US class I railroad, was formed by more than 200 railroad mergers between 1838 and 1982. It had headquarters in Roanoke, Virginia for most of its 150 year existence. The company was famous for manufacturing steam locomotives in-house at the Roanoke shops as well as their own hopper cars. Around 1960, N&W was the last major American railroad to convert from steam to diesel motive power. In the mid 20th century, N&W merged with long-time rival Virginian Railway in the Pocahontas coal region and grew even more in size and profitability by mergers with other rail carriers including Nickel Plate Road and Wabash in adjacent areas to form a system serving 14 states and a province of Canada between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mississippi River and Great Lakes with more than 7,000 miles of trackage. Norfolk & Western Railway was combined with the Southern Railway, another profitable carrier, to form Norfolk Southern Corporation (NS) in 1982.

City Point, bridging the Dismal Swamp, William Mahone, Civil War

The history of the Norfolk and Western Railway began with the City Point Railroad, a nine-mile line from City Point (now part of the independent City of Hopewell, Virginia) to Petersburg, Virginia. This short-line, formed in 1838, played a crucial role in the US Civil War during the Siege of Petersburg in 1864-1865. After the War, it became part of the Southside Railroad. William Mahone (1826-1895), a Virginia Military Institute engineering graduate, built the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad beginning in 1853 and eventually became its president in the pre-Civil War era. Mahone's innovative roadbed through the Great Dismal Swamp near Norfolk, Virginia, employs a log foundation laid at right angles beneath the surface of the swamp. Still in use today, it withstands immense tonnages of coal traffic - today's freight on a very effectively engineered 19th century track. Mahone married Otelia Butler, from Smithfield in Isle of Wight County who was said to be a "cultured lady". Her father, the late Dr. Robert Butler (1784-1853) had been Treasurer of the State of Virginia. Popular legend has it that Otelia and William Mahone traveled along the newly completed Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad naming stations along the 52-mile tangent between Suffolk and Petersburg from Ivanhoe a book she was reading written by Sir Walter Scott. From his historical Scottish novels, Otelia chose the place names of Windsor, Waverly and Wakefield. She tapped the Scottish Clan "McIvor" for the name of Ivor, a small Southampton County town. When they could not agree, it is said that the young couple invented a new word in honor of their "dispute", which is how the tiny community of Disputanta was named. The N&P railroad was completed in 1858. Of small stature, dynamic "Little Billy" Mahone became a Major General in the Confederate Army and was widely regarded as the hero of the Battle of the Crater during the Siege of Petersburg in 1864-1865. Otelia Mahone served as a nurse in the Confederate capital of Richmond.

Atlantic, Mississippi & Ohio Railroad meets Shenandoah Valley Railroad

After the war, William Mahone was the driving force in the linkage of N&P, South Side Railroad and the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad to form the Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio Railroad (AM&O), a new line extending from Norfolk to Bristol, Virginia in 1870. William and Otelia Mahone moved to the headquarters city of Lynchburg. The letters A,M & O were said to stand for "All Mine and Otelia's." After several years of operating under receiverships, Mahone's role as a railroad builder ended in 1881 when northern financial interests took control. At the foreclosure auction, the AM&O was purchased by E.W. Clark and Co., a private banking firm in Philadelphia which controlled the Shenandoah Valley Railroad then under construction. The AM&O was renamed Norfolk and Western, perhaps taken from a 1850s charter application filed by citizens of Norfolk, Virginia. Mahone was active in Virginia politics, and was able to arrange for the state's proceeds of the A,M&O sale to go for educational purposes, including the funds to begin what is now Virginia State University near Petersburg. He was later a Senator in the U.S. Congress.

Frederick J. Kimball, Big Lick becomes Roanoke, reaching Ohio

Frederick J. Kimball (1838-1903) was a civil engineer and partner in the Clark firm. He was named to head the new N&W and consolidated it with the Shenandoah Valley Railroad. Henry Fink, who Mahone had hired in 1855, became General Superintendent. For the junction for the Shenandoah Valley and the Norfolk & Western, Kimball and his board of directors selected a small Virginia village called Big Lick, on the Roanoke River. The small town was later renamed Roanoke, Virginia. Kimball, whose interest in geology was responsible for the opening of the Pocahontas coalfields in western Virginia and West Virginia, pushed N&W lines through the wilds of West Virginia, north to Columbus, Ohio and Cincinnati, Ohio, and south to Durham, North Carolina and Winston-Salem, North Carolina. This gave the railroad the route structure it was to use for more than 60 years.

Coal

Winston-Salem, North Carolina In 1885, several small mining companies representing about 400,000 acres (1,600 km²) of bituminous coal reserves grouped together to form the coalfields' largest landowner, the Philadelphia-based Flat-Top Coal Land Association. Norfolk and Western Railway bought the Association and reorganized it as the Pocahontas Coal and Coke Co., which it later renamed Pocahontas Land Corp, now a subsidiary of Norfolk Southern. As the availability and fame of high-quality Pocahontas bituminous coal increased, economic forces took over. Coal operators and their employees settled dozens of towns in southern West Virginia, and in the next few years, as coal demand swelled, some of them amassed fortunes. The countryside was soon sprinkled with tipples, coke ovens, houses for workers, company stores and churches. In the four decades before the Crash of 1929 and subsequent Depression, these coal towns flourished. One example was the small community of Bramwell, West Virginia, which in its heyday boasted the highest per capita concentration of millionaires in the country. Bramwell, West Virginia, on Elizabeth River at Norfolk, Virginia]] In 1886, the N&W tracks were extended directly new piers at Lambert's Point, which was located in Norfolk County just north of the City of Norfolk on the Elizabeth River, where one of the busiest coal export facilities in the world was built to reach Hampton Roads shipping. A residential section was also developed to house the families of the workers. Many early residents of Lambert's Point were involved in the coal industry. The opening of the coalfields made N&W prosperous and Pocahontas coal world-famous. By 1900, Norfolk was the leading coal exporting port on the East Coast. Transported by the N&W, and later the neighboring Virginian Railway (VGN), it fueled half the world's navies and today stokes steel mills and power plants all over the globe.

Roanoke Shops: building precision steam locomotives in-house

The company was famous for manufacturing steam locomotives in-house. It was at the Norfolk & Western's Roanoke Shops, which employed thousands of craftsmen, where decades later the famed classes A, J, and Y6 locomotives would be designed, built and maintained, made the company known industry wide for its excellence in steam power. Around 1960, N&W was the last major railroad to convert from steam to diesel motive power. However, several of its famous steam locomotives, including J class # 611 and A class # 1218 are now on display at the Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke, VA.

World Wars, Great Depression, and efficiencies

Norfolk and Western operated profitably through World War I and World War II and paid regular dividends throughout the Depression. During World War I, the NW was jointly operated with its adjacent competitor, the Virginian Railway (VGN), under the USRA's wartime takeover of the Pocahontas Roads. The operating efficiencies were significant, and after the war, when the railroads were returned to their respective owners and competitive status, the NW never lost sight of the VGN and its low-grade routing through Virginia. However, the US Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) turned down attempts at combining the roads until the late 1950s, when a proposed Norfolk & Western Railway and Virginian Railway merger was finally approved.

The Virginian Railway - an engineering marvel of its day

The Virginian Railway (VGN) was conceived and built by William Nelson Page and Henry Huttleston Rogers. Page had helped engineer and build the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway (C&O) through the mountains of West Virginia and Rogers had already become a millionaire and a principal of Standard Oil before their partnership was formed. Early in the 20th century, they built a "Mountains to Sea" railroad from the coal fields of southern West Virginia to port near Norfolk at Sewell's Point in the harbor of Hampton Roads. They accomplished this right under the noses of the pre-existing and much bigger C&O and N&W railroads by forming two small intrastate railroads, Deepwater Railway, in West Virginia, and Tidewater Railway in Virginia. Once right-of-way and land acquisitions had been secured, the two small railroads were merged to form the Virginian Railway. Engineered by Page and financed almost entirely from Rogers' personal resources, the VGN was built following a policy of investing in the best route and equipment on initial selection and purchase to save operating expenses. Mark Twain spoke at the dedication of the new railroad in Norfolk, Virginia only 6 weeks before Rogers died in May, 1909 following his only inspection trip on the newly completed railroad. That June, Dr. Booker T. Washington made a whistle-stop speaking tour on the VGN, traveling in Rogers' private car, Dixie, and later revealing that Rogers had been instrumental in funding many small country schools and institutions of higher education in the South for the betterment of Negroes. For 50 years, the Virginian Railway enjoyed a more modern pathway built to the highest standards, providing major competition for coal traffic to its larger neighboring railroads, the C&O and N&W. The 600-mile VGN followed Rogers' philosophy throughout its profitable history, earning the nickname "Richest Little Railroad in the World." It operated some of the largest and most powerful steam, electric, and diesel locomotives. The VGN installed a large 134 mile-long railway electrification system between 1922 and 1926 at a cost of $15 million, and had its own power plant at Narrows, Virginia. It shared electrical resources with the Norfolk and Western between 1925 and 1950, when the latter discontinued its own electrified section through the great Flat Top mountain. The larger electrification of the VGN was also discontinued under Norfolk & Western management in 1962, following the merger.

The Modern Railroad Merger Era 1960-1982

When the Virginian Railway was finally merged into Norfolk & Western in 1959, it is widely believed that the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) approval began a merger movement and a modernization of the entire US railroad industry. In 1964, the former Wabash; Nickel Plate; Pittsburgh and West Virginia Railway; and Akron, Canton and Youngstown Railroad were brought into the system in one of the most complex mergers of the era. This consolidation, enhanced by the addition of a more direct route to Chicago, Illinois in 1976, positioned Norfolk & Western as an important Midwestern railroad, providing direct single-line service between the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the Great Lakes and Mississippi River on the other. In the late 1960s, Norfolk & Western also acquired Dereco, a combination of the Delaware and Hudson, Erie Lackawanna, Reading, and Central Railroad of New Jersey. However, this subsidiary consisting of troubled northeastern US railroads was not merged into the Norfolk & Western. Most of Dereco later became part of Conrail. Some of those portions later also became part of Norfolk Southern when in it acquired the major portion of Conrail in 1999. On September 1, 1981, Norfolk & Western acquired Illinois Terminal Railroad. NW was also a major investor in Piedmont Airlines.

Autoracks: competing with trucking

Piedmont Airlines In the 1950s, Canadian National Railway (CN) introduced a group of autoracks which represented a new innovation. The CN bi-level auto-rack cars had end-door cars. They were huge by the standards of the time; each 75-footer (23 m) could carry 8 vehicles. These cars were a big success and helped lead to the development of today's enclosed auto racks. Tri-level versions were developed in the 1970s. During the 1960s, autoracks took over rail transportation of newly-completed automobiles in North America. They carried more cars in the same space and were easier to load and unload than the boxcars formerly used. Ever-larger auto carriers and specialized terminals were developed by N&W and other railroads. The railroads were able to provide lower costs and greater protection from in-transit damage (such as that which may occur due to vandalism or weather and traffic conditions on unenclosed truck trailers). Using the autoracks, the railroads became the primary long-distance transporter of completed automobiles, one of few commodities where the industry has been able to overcome trucking in competition.

Becoming part of Norfolk Southern - joining with a strong partner

In the early 1980s, the profitable Norfolk & Western combined forces with Southern Railway, another profitable company, to form today’s' Norfolk Southern and compete more effectively with CSX Transportation, itself a combination of smaller railroads in the eastern half of the United States. Today, much of the former Norfolk and Western Railway is a vital portion of Norfolk Southern Corporation, a Fortune 500 company which has its headquarters in Norfolk, only a short distance from the coal piers at Lambert's Point.

Leaders of the Norfolk and Western

Of the thousands of men and women who made the AM&O and N&W work and grow after the American Civil War, the following people were the railroad's top leaders.
- William Mahone
- George F. Tyler
- Henry Fink
- Frederick J. Kimball
- Lucius E. Johnson
- Nicholas D. Maher
- William J. Jenks
- Arthur C. Needles
- Robert B. (Racehorse) Smith
- Stuart T. Saunders
- Herman H. Pevler
- John P. Fishwick
- Robert B. Claytor

References

Books

- Blake, Nelson Morehouse, Phd. (1935) William Mahone of Virginia; Soldier and Political Insurgent, Garrett and Massie Publishers; Richmond, VA
- Dixon, Thomas W, Jr., (1994) Appalachian Coal Mines & Railroads. Lynchburg, Virginia: TLC Publishing Inc. ISBN 1-883089-08-5
- Huddleston, Eugene L, Ph.D. (2002) Appalachian Conquest, Lynchburg, Virginia: TLC Publishing Inc. ISBN 1-883089-79-4
- Lambie, Joseph T. (1954) From Mine to Market: The History of Coal Transportation on the Norfolk and Western Railway New York: New York University Press
- Lewis, Lloyd D. (1992) The Virginian Era. Lynchburg, Virginia: TLC Publishing Inc.
- Lewis, Lloyd D. (1994) Norfolk & Western and Virginian Railways in Color by H. Reid. Lynchburg, Virginia: TLC Publishing Inc. ISBN 1-883089-09-3
- Middleton, William D. (1974) (1st ed.). When The Steam Railroads Electrified Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Kalmbach Publishing Co. ISBN 0-89024-028-0
- Prince, Richard E. (1980) Norfolk & Western Railway, Pocahontas Coal Carrier, R.E. Prince; Millard, NE
- Reid, H. (1961). The Virginian Railway (1st ed.). Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Kalmbach Publishing Co.
- Reisweber, Kurt (1995) Virginian Rails 1953-1993 (1st ed.) Old Line Graphics. ISBN 1-879314-11-8
- Striplin, E. F. Pat. (1981) The Norfolk & Western : a history Roanoke, Va. : Norfolk and Western Railway Co. ISBN 0963325469
- Traser, Donald R. (1998) Virginia Railway Depots. Old Dominion Chapter, National Railway Historical Society. ISBN 0-9669906-0-9
- Wiley, Aubrey and Wallace, Conley (1985{

Class I railroad

A Class I railroad in the United States, or a Class I railway (also Class I rail carrier) in Canada, is one of the largest freight railroads, as classified based on operating revenue. Smaller railroads are classified as Class II and Class III. The exact revenues required to be in each class have varied through the years, and they are now continuously adjusted for inflation.

Current criteria

As of 2004, a Class I railroad, as defined by the Surface Transportation Board, has an operating revenue exceeding $277.7 million. The exact setting of the cut-off figure has always been as much a political decision as anything else, as different rules apply to the different classes. For instance, in early 1991, Montana Rail Link and Wisconsin Central asked the Interstate Commerce Commission to raise the bar, then set at $93.5 million, to avoid being redesignated as Class I, due to extra costs and paperwork. The cutoff was raised at the end of 1992 to $250 million, dropping the Florida East Coast Railway to Class II (the Class II/III line stayed at $20 million). In Canada, a Class I railway is defined (as of 2004) as a company that has earned gross revenues exceeding $250 million for each of the previous two years. Currently seven United States railroads are classified as Class I. The two major players east of the Mississippi River are CSX Transportation and the Norfolk Southern Railway (the latter called "Norfolk Southern Combined Railroad Subsidiaries" by the AAR). West of the Mississippi, the BNSF Railway and Union Pacific Railroad cover roughly the same territory. The Kansas City Southern Railway is a smaller system, mainly forming part of the NAFTA Railway corridor from the Midwest into Mexico, and two subsidiaries of Canadian companies - the Grand Trunk Corporation, controlled by the Canadian National Railway, and the Soo Line Railroad, controlled by the Canadian Pacific Railway - are also considered Class I. The Grand Trunk Corporation includes two former Class I railroads - the Illinois Central Railroad and Grand Trunk Western Railroad - which still operate separately, but are reported as one unit. Two Canadian railways are currently Class I - the Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway. Those companies would be Class I by the U.S. definition. Two Mexican railroads would fit the definition if they were U.S. companies - Ferrocarril Mexicano and Grupo Transportación Ferroviaria Mexicana; the latter is controlled by the Kansas City Southern Railway. Amtrak and VIA Rail provide intercity passenger service in the U.S. and Canada, but as they are not typical freight carriers, they are not classified.

History

The classification of U.S. railroads as Class I, II, or III was started by the Interstate Commerce Commission in the 1930s. Initially Class I railroads were defined as railroads with operating revenue of at least $1 million. There were 132 Class I railroads in 1939. The $1 million figure was used until 1956 (at which time there were 113 ); however, since that time, it has increased faster than inflation. In 1956 it was increased to $3 million. By 1963 the number of Class I railroads had dropped to 102. By 1965 the cut-off had increased to $5 million, to $10 million in 1976 and to $50 million in 1978, at which point only 41 railroads were still Class I. The Class III category was dropped in 1956, but reinstated in 1978. In 1979 all switching and terminal railroads, even those with Class I or Class II revenues, were redesignated as Class III. Nowadays, the Class II and Class III designations are rarely used. The Association of American Railroads instead splits non-Class I companies into three categories:
- Regional railroads operate at least 350 miles or make at least $40 million per year.
- Local railroads are non-regional railroads that engage in line-haul service.
- Switching and terminal railroads mainly switch cars between other railroads or provide service from other liens to a common terminal. The Surface Transportation Board continues to use Class II and Class III, as labor regulations are different for the two classes.

Consolidations

Over the years, many Class I railroads have merged to stave off bankruptcy or simply to increase profits. The following is a list of consolidations that have merged at least one Class I railroad into a larger one:
- July 1, 1967: Atlantic Coast Line Railroad and Seaboard Air Line Railroad into Seaboard Coast Line Railroad
- 1968: New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroad merge to become Penn Central
- 1970: Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, Great Northern Railway, Northern Pacific Railway and Spokane, Portland and Seattle Railway all merge into Burlington Northern Railroad
- 1976: Central Railroad of New Jersey, Erie Lackawanna Railroad, Lehigh and Hudson River Railway, Lehigh Valley Railroad, Penn Central and Reading Railroad all merge into Conrail
- 1982: Louisville and Nashville Railroad and Seaboard Coast Line Railroad into Seaboard System Railroad
- 1982: Norfolk and Western Railroad and Southern Railway merge to form Norfolk Southern
- 1985: Milwaukee Road merged into Soo Line Railroad
- 1986: Seaboard System Railroad renamed CSX Transportation
- 1987: Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and Chesapeake and Ohio Railway merged into CSX Transportation
- 1988: Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad and Southern Pacific Railroad merge, keeps Southern Pacific name
- 1995: Chicago and North Western Railway merges into Union Pacific Railroad
- 1995: Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway and Burlington Northern Railroad merge to become Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway
- 1996: Southern Pacific Railroad merges into Union Pacific Railroad
- 1998: Conrail's main operations divided between CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern; Conrail continues as a CSX-NS joint venture for switching purposes

Table of Class I railroads by year

References

# Arrivals and Departures, Trains March 1991 # Arrivals and Departures, Trains November 1992 # Profiles of the regionals, Trains December 1991
- [http://www.aar.org/PubCommon/Documents/AboutTheIndustry/Statistics.pdf AAR - Class I Railroad Statistics] (PDF)
- [http://www.spikesys.com/Trains/fmly_tre.html The Family Tree of North American Railroads]
- [http://www.cta-otc.gc.ca/rail-ferro/finance/uca/1100_e.html Uniform Classification of Accounts and Related Railway Records (UCA)]. Retrieved April 24, 2005.
- Category:Former Class I railroads in the United States

1838

1838 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar).

Events

- January 6 - Samuel Morse first publicly demonstrates the telegraph.
- January 8 - Alfred Vail demonstrates a telegraph using dots and dashes (this is the forerunner of Morse code)
- January 12 - Joseph Smith, Jr. and Sidney Rigdon flee Ohio for Missouri
- March 7 – Jenny Lind, the "Swedish Nightingale" debuts at the Stockholm Opera
- March 8 - The New Orleans Mint strikes its first coinage, 30 dimes.
- April 30 - Nicaragua declares independence from the Central American Federation
- May 31 - In Cornwall, self-declared Messiah John Nichols Thom kills a policeman who was sent to arrest him and flees to Bossenden Wood with 30 followers. Later in the day he dies when he tries to rally his followers to fight soldiers of the 45th Foot regiment
- June 12 - Territory of Iowa established
- 1 August - Slavery officially abolished in Trinidad & Tobago
- 7 September - Grace Darling rescues 9 survivors from the wreck of Forfarshire off the Farne Islands
- September 3 - Dressed in a sailor's uniform and carrying identification papers provided by a free Black seaman, future abolitionist Frederick Douglass boards a train in Maryland on his way to freedom from slavery
- October 16 - Date in the Bill Stump's Stone
- October 27 - Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs issues the Extermination Order, ordering the expulsion of all Mormons from the state.
- November 3 The Bombay Times and Journal of Commerce is founded. This paper was later renamed to The Times of India in 1861
- November 5 - Honduras separates from the Central American Federation, weakening the confederation.
- Proteins discovered by Jöns Jakob Berzelius
- the Pastry War
- Start of First British-Afghan War
- Republic of Yucatan declares independence from Mexico
- Start of Central American Civil War
- Friedrich Bessel makes the first accurate measurement of distance to a star.
- Christian Hermann Weisse proposes the two-source hypothesis of gospel origins, which is held by a majority of biblical scholars to this day.
- Regular Atlantic steamship service begins
- Augustus Siebe invents a closed diving suit with a helmet
- Louis Daguerre develops Daguerreotype
- Epidemic kills half of the native population in the Aleuts

Births

- January 4 - General Tom Thumb, American circus performer and entertainer (d. 1883)
- January 6 - Max Bruch, German composer (d. 1920)
- January 16 - Franz Brentano, German philosopher and psychologist (d. 1917)
- February 6 - Henry Irving, English actor (d. 1905)
- February 10 - Gustav Oelwein, The founder of Oelwein, Iowa (d. 1913)
- February 16 - Henry Adams, American historian (d. 1918)
- February 18 - Ernst Mach, Austrian physicist and philosopher (d. 1916)
- March 3 - George William Hill, American astronomer (d. 1914)
- April 8 - Ferdinand von Zeppelin, German inventor (d. 1917)
- April 16 - Martha McClellan Brown, American temperance movement leader (d. 1916)
- April 28 - Tobias Michael Carel Asser, Dutch jurist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1913)
- April 21 - John Muir, American ecologist (d. 1914)
- May 10 - John Wilkes Booth, American actor and assassin (d. 1865)
- May 20 - Jules Méline, French statesman (d. 1925)
- September 2 - Liliuokalani of Hawai'i, last Queen of Hawaii (d. 1917)
- October 6 - Giuseppe Cesare Abba, Italian patriot and writer (d. 1910)
- October 25 - Georges Bizet, French composer (d. 1875)
- November 7 - Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, French writer (d. 1889)
- November 13 - Joseph Fielding Smith, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (d. 1918)
- December 20 - Edwin Abbott Abbott, theologian and author (d. 1926)
- December 30 - Émile Loubet, 7th president President of France (d.1929)

Month/day unknown

- Cleveland Abbe, American meteorologist (d. 1916)
- John S. Billings,M.D., American military and medical leader (d. 1913)

Deaths

- January 5 - Anthony Van Egmond, A Rebel leader in Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837
- May 17 - Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, French diplomat (b. 1754)
- July 4 - Colonel José Antonio Vidaurre, Chilean rebel (shot)
- August 21 - Adelbert von Chamisso, German writer (b. 1781)
- September 1 - William Clark, American explorer (b. 1770)
- November 21 - Georges Mouton, count of Lobau, Marshal of France (b. 1770) Category:1838 ko:1838년 simple:1838 th:พ.ศ. 2381

Roanoke, Virginia

Roanoke (The Star City of the South) is an independent city located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The name Roanoke is said to have originated from the native American word for shell "money". The town of Big Lick was chartered in 1874. It became the town of Roanoke in 1882 and the independent city of Roanoke two years later. Its location in the scenic Blue Ridge Mountains, in the middle of the Roanoke Valley between Maryland and Tennessee, made it the transportation hub of western Virginia and contributed to its rapid growth. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 94,911. The City of Roanoke is adjacent to, but politically separate from, Roanoke County. The United States Census Bureau includes in Roanoke's metropolitan area the counties of Botetourt and Roanoke, and the cities of Salem and Roanoke. The metropolitan area's population in the past three censuses has been reported to be:
- 1980 --- 220,393

- 1990 --- 224,477

- 2000 --- 235,932

History

After the American Civil War (1861-1865), William Mahone, a civil engineer and hero of the Battle of the Crater, was the driving force in the linkage of 3 Virginia railroads to form the Atlantic, Mississippi & Ohio Railroad (AM&O), a new line extending from Norfolk to Bristol, Virginia in 1870. After several years of operating under receiverships, Mahone's role as a railroad builder ended in 1881 when northern financial interests took control. At the foreclosure auction, the AM&O was purchased by E.W. Clark and Co., a private banking firm in Philadelphia which controlled the Shenandoah Valley Railroad then under construction. The AM&O was renamed Norfolk and Western Railway (N&W).. Frederick J. Kimball, a civil engineer and partner in the Clark firm, headed the new line and consolidated it with the Shenandoah Valley Railroad. For the junction for the Shenandoah and the Norfolk and Western, Kimball and his board of directors selected a small Virginia village called Big Lick, on the Roanoke River. Although the grateful citizens offered to rename their town "Kimball", on his suggestion, they agreed to go with Roanoke after the river. As the N&W brought people and jobs, the Town of Roanoke quickly became an independent city in 1884. In fact, Roanoke became a city so quickly that it earned the nickname "Magic City." Kimball, whose interest in geology was responsible for the opening of the Pocahontas coalfields in western Virginia and West Virginia, pushed N&W lines through the wilds of West Virginia, north to Columbus, Ohio and Cincinnati, Ohio, and south to Durham, North Carolina and Winston-Salem, North Carolina. This gave the railroad the route structure it was to use for more than 60 years. The Virginian Railway (VGN), an engineering marvel of its day, was conceived and built by William Nelson Page and Henry Huttleston Rogers Following the Roanoke River, the VGN was built through the City of Roanoke early in the 20th century. It was merged with the N&W in 1959. The opening of the coalfields made N&W prosperous and Pocahontas bituminous coal world-famous. Transported by the N&W and neighboring Virginian Railway (VGN), it fueled half the world's navies and today stokes steel mills and power plants all over the globe. The N&W was famous for manufacturing steam locomotives in-house. It was at the Norfolk & Western's Roanoke Shops, which employed thousands of craftsmen, where decades later the famed classes A, J, and Y6 locomotives would be designed, built and maintained, made the company known industry-wide for its excellence in steam power. Around 1960, N&W was the last major railroad in the United States to convert from steam to diesel motive power. However, several of its famous steam engines, including J class # 611 and A class # 1218 are now on display at the [http://www.vmt.org Virginia Museum of Transportation] in Roanoke. The steam age is also chronicled in photographs in the [http://www.linkmuseum.org/ O. Winston Link Museum] also in Roanoke. Today, Roanoke is famous for its Chili Cook-Off, Strawberry Festival, and the large red, white, and blue illuminated Mill Mountain Star on Mill Mountain, which is visible from many points in the city and neighboring valley. At the top of Mill Mountain is small zoo which features animals which require the cool mountaintop temperatures and atmosphere. Wrestler Tony Atlas is originally from Roanoke. The city's newspaper, [http://www.roanoke.com The Roanoke Times], has been published for 120 years. In 2002, it was designated the best-read daily newspaper in the country, according to the 2002 Scarborough Report. Of 162 newspapers in top U.S. metropolitan areas, The Roanoke Times ranked first in the percentage of adults who read their daily newspaper.

Geography

Tony Atlas According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 111.1 km² (42.9 mi²). 111.1 km² (42.9 mi²) of it is land and 0.1 km² (0.04 mi²) of it is water. The total area is 0.07% water. Within the city limits is Mill Mountain, which stands detached from surrounding ranges. Its summit commands a view of twisting streams, ridges, valleys, and distant peaks.

Economic Statistics: Roanoke MSA

The Roanoke, VA MSA is a U.S. Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) in Virginia as defined by the United States Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as of June, 2003. Note: Since a state constitutional change in 1871, all cities in Virginia are independent cities and they are not legally located in any county. The OMB considers these independent cities to be county-equivalents for the purpose of defining MSAs in Virginia. Each MSA is listed by its counties, then cities, each in alphabetical order, and not by size. The Roanoke, VA MSA includes:
- Botetourt County
- Craig County
- Franklin County
- Roanoke County
- [http://www.roanokegov.com/ City of Roanoke]
- City of Salem

Landmarks & Points of Interest

City of Salem
- [http://www.blueridgeparkway.org/ Blue Ridge Parkway]
- [http://www.grandintheatre.com/ Grandin Theatre]
- [http://www.hotelroanoke.com/ Hotel Roanoke]
- Mill Mountain Star [http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/VAROAstar.html]
- [http://www.mmzoo.org/ Mill Mountain Zoo]
- [http://www.hollyeats.com/RoanokeWeinerStand.htm Roanoke Weiner Stand]
- [http://www.texastavern-inc.com/ Texas Tavern]
- [http://www.local1132.org/firestations.htm/ Roanoke's Historical Fire Station #1]

Arts, History & Culture in Roanoke

- [http://www.explorepark.org/ Virginia's Explore Park]
- [http://www.vmt.org/ Virginia Museum of Transportation]
- [http://www.artmuseumroanoke.org/ Art Museum of Western Virginia]
- [http://www.history-museum.org/ History Museum of Western Virginia]
- [http://www.smwv.org/ Science Museum of Western Virginia]
- [http://www.harrisonmuseum.org/ Harrison Museum of African-American Culture]
- [http://www.rso.com/ Roanoke Symphony Orchestra]
- [http://www.operaroanoke.org/ Opera Roanoke]
- [http://www.millmountain.org/ Mill Mountain Theatre]
- [http://www.linkmuseum.org/ O. Winston Link Museum]
- [http://www.jeffcenter.org/shaftman.htm/ Jefferson Center]

Speciality Histories about Roanoke

- [http://www.forgotten-roanoke.com/ Downtown Roanoke's history revealed]
- [http://www.roanokefirefighters.blogspot.com/ The History of the Roanoke Fire Department in progress from the 1880's to present, with current news and links]
- [http://www.local1132.org/timeline.htm/ The Maurice Wiseman Project - History of the Roanoke Fire Service]
- [http://members.cox.net/oldroanoke/ Old Roanoke - A photographic history of Roanoke Virginia]
- [http://members.cox.net/lendys/ The Lendy's Web Page]
- [http://roanoke-starcity.tripod.com Roanoke - Star City] Category:Cities in Virginia

Hopper car

A hopper car is a type of railroad freight car used to transport loose bulk commodities such as coal, ore, grain, and the like. This type of car is distinguished from a gondola car in that it has opening doors on the underside or the sides to discharge its cargo. The development of the hopper car went along with the development of automated handling of such commodities, with automated loading and unloading facilities. There are two main types of hopper car: open and covered. gondola and early 1970s.]] Covered hopper cars are used for cargos that must be protected from the elements (chiefly rain) such as grain, sugar, and fertilizer. Open cars are used for commodities such as coal, which can get wet and dry out with no harmful effect. Hopper cars have been used by railways worldwide whenever automated cargo handling has been desired. Recently in North America the open hopper car has been in a terminal decline due to the advent of the rotary car dumper (which simply inverts the car to unload it, and has become the preferred unloading technology). A rotary dumper permits the use of simpler, tougher, more compact (because sloping ends are not required) gondola cars instead of hoppers. Covered hoppers, though, are still in widespread use. For loads that are less dense (such as grains) or susceptible to damage in the weather (such as unmixed cement), covered hoppers are normally used. Category:Freight equipment ja:ホッパ車

20th century

The 20th century lasted from 1901 to 2000 in the Gregorian calendar. Common usage sometimes regards it as lasting from 1900 to 1999, but this is incorrect since counting of calendar years begins with the year 1. The 20th century is also sometimes known as the nineteen hundreds (1900s). Decades are almost always considered as starting with the "0" year and named accordingly ("1960s", etc.). However, a number of arguments have been used to justify the common usage. One was advanced, erroneously, by Stephen Jay Gould. He claimed that the first decade had only nine years, thus contradicting the definition of decade equaled 10 years. Another argument is that the astronomical year numbering system for years does have a year zero, the year normally known as 1 BC. In 2000 the International Organization for Standardization clarified ISO 8601 to use the astronomical year numbering system, which could be interpreted as retrospectively endorsing all the people who had celebrated the new century a few months earlier. The term is also used to describe various periods that overlap with the calendar definition, most notably the Short twentieth century, which claims that the 20th Century spanned from 1914 to 1989, rendering the pre-WWI 1900s into the 19th Century and putting the 1990s at the beginning of the 21st Century. Indeed, the part of the 20th Century before World War I is quite identical to the late 1800s culturally and technologically and the 1990s decade pointed in many ways (such as the rise of the Internet) to the 21st Century and is seen by some as not being truly a part of the 20th Century.

Overview

The twentieth century saw a remarkable shift in the way that vast numbers of people lived, as a result of technological, medical, social, ideological, and political innovations. Terms like ideology, world war, genocide, and nuclear war entered common usage and became an influence on the lives of everyday people. War reached an unprecedented scale and level of sophistication; in the Second World War (1939-1945) alone, approximately 57 million people died, mainly due to massive improvements in weaponry. The trends of mechanization of goods and services and networks of global communication, which were begun in the 19th century, continued at an ever-increasing pace in the 20th. In spite of the terror and chaos, the 20th century saw many attempts at world peace. As the 35th President of the United States John F. Kennedy said: :What kind of peace do we seek? I am talking about a genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living. Not merely peace in our time, but peace in all time. Our problems are man-made, therefore they can be solved by man. For in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children's future, and we are all mortal. Virtually every aspect of life in virtually every human society changed in some fundamental way or another during the twentieth century and for the first time, any individual could influence the course of history no matter their background. Arguably, the 20th century re-shaped the face of the planet in more ways than any previous century.
- Death rates
- Infant mortality
- Infectious disease
- Life expectancy
- Maternal death rates
- Battles Scientific discoveries such as relativity and quantum physics radically changed the worldview of scientists, causing them to realize that the universe was much more complex than they had previously believed, and dashing the hopes at the end of the preceding century that the last few details of knowledge were about to be filled in. For a more coherent overview of the historical events of the century, see The 20th century in review. The 20th century has sometimes been called, both within and outside the United States, the American Century, though this is a controversial term.

Important developments, events and achievements

Science and technology

- The assembly line and mass production of motor vehicles and other goods allowed manufacturers to produce more and cheaper products. This allowed the automobile to become the most important means of transportation.
- The invention of heavier-than-air flying machines and the jet engine allowed for the world to become "smaller". Space flight increased knowledge of the rest of the universe and allowed for global real-time communications via geosynchronous satellites.
- Mass media technologies such as film, radio, and television allow the communication of political messages and entertainment with unprecedented impact
- Mass availability of the telephone and later, the computer, especially through the Internet, provides people with new opportunities for near-instantaneous communication
- Applied electronics, notably in its miniaturized form as integrated circuits, made possible the above mentioned rise of mass media, telecommunications, ubiquitous computing, and all kinds of "intelligent" appliances; as well as many advances in natural sciences such as physics, by the use of exponentially growing calculation power (see supercomputer).
- The development of Nitrogen fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides resulted in significantly higher agricultural yield.
- Advances in fundamental physics through the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics led to the development of nuclear weapons (known informally as "the Bomb" and dropped on the industrial town of Hiroshima and the historic one of Nagasaki), the nuclear reactor, and the laser. Fusion power was studied extensively but remained an experimental technology at the end of the century.
- Inventions such as the washing machine and air conditioning led to an increase in both the quantity and quality of leisure time for the middle class in Western societies.
- Most influential inventions in the 20th century: antibiotics, oral contraceptives, new plastics, transistors, Internet
- More...

Wars and politics

- Democratic nations began to extend voting privileges to all adults.
- Rising nationalism and increasing national awareness were among the causes of World War I, the first of two wars to involve all the major world powers including Germany, France, Italy, Japan, the United States and the British Commonwealth. World War I led to the creation of many new countries, especially in Eastern Europe. Ironically, it was said by many to be the 'War to end all Wars'.
- The economic and political aftermath of World War I led to the rise of Fascism and Nazism in Europe, and shortly to World War II. This war also involved Asia and the Pacific, in the form of Japanese aggression against China and the United States. While the First World War mainly cost lives among soldiers, civilians suffered greatly in the Second -- from the bombing of cities on both sides, and in the unprecedented German genocide of the Jews and others, known as the Holocaust.
- During World War I, in Russia the Bolshevik putsch led to the Russian Revolution of 1917. After the Soviet Union's involvement in World War II, Communism became a major force in global politics, spreading all over the world: notably, to Eastern Europe, China, Indochina and Cuba. This led to the Cold War and proxy wars with the western world, including wars in Korea (1950-53) and Vietnam (1957 - 75).
- The "fall of Communism" in the late 1980s freed Eastern and Central Europe from Soviet supremacy. It also led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia into successor states, many rife with ethnic nationalism, and left the United States as the world's superpower.
- Through the League of Nations and, after World War II, the United Nations, international cooperation increased. Other efforts included the formation of the European Union, leading to a common currency in much of Western Europe, the euro around the turn of the millennium.
- The end of colonialism led to the independence of many African and Asian countries. During the Cold War, many of these aligned with the USA, the USSR, or China for defense.
- The creation of Israel, a Jewish state in a mostly Arab region of the world, fueled many conflicts in the region, which were also influenced by the vast oil fields in many of the Arab countries.
- The term Southeast Asia coined.

Culture and entertainment

- Movies, music and the media had a major influence on fashion and trends in all aspects of life. As many movies and music originate from the United States, American culture spread rapidly over the world.
- After gaining political rights in the United States and much of Europe in the first part of the century, and with the advent of new birth control techniques women became more independent throughout the century.
- Rock and Roll and Jazz styles of music are developed in the United States, and quickly become the dominant forms of popular music in America, and later, the world. The Beatles, a 1960s British Rock and Roll band, becomes one of the most successful acts of all time, and is credited, in their experimental later albums, with permanently changing what was thought possible in popular music.
- Modern art developed new styles such as expressionism, cubism, and surrealism.
- The automobile provided vastly increased transportation capabilities for the average member of Western societies in the early to mid-century, spreading even further later on. City design throughout most of the West became focused on transport via car. The car became a leading symbol of modern society, with styles of car suited to and symbolic of particular lifestyles.
- Sports became an important part of society, becoming an activity not only for the privileged. Watching sports, later also on television, became a popular activity.

Disease and medicine

- Although the availability and quality of medicine continued to improve, epidemic diseases continued to spread, aided by modern transportation. An influenza pandemic, the Spanish Flu, killed 25 million between 1918 and 1919, while AIDS is yet uncured and treatments remain too expensive for wide use in developing countries.
- Advances in medicine, such as the invention of antibiotics, decreased the number of people dying from diseases. Contraceptive drugs and organ transplantation were developed. The discovery of DNA molecules and the advent of molecular biology allowed for cloning and genetic engineering.

Natural resources and the environment

- The widespread use of petroleum in industry -- both as a chemical precursor to plastics and as a fuel for the automobile and airplane -- led to the vital geopolitical importance of petroleum resources. The Middle East, home to many of the world's oil deposits, became a center of geopolitical and military tension throughout the latter half of the century. (For example, oil was a factor in Japan's decision to go to war against the United States in 1941, and the oil cartel, OPEC, used an oil embargo of sorts in the wake of the Yom Kippur War in the 1970s).
- A vast increase in fossil fuel consumption leads to depletion of natural resources, while air pollution has led to the develoment of an ozone hole and, many believe, global warming and both local and global climate change. The problem is increased by world-wide deforestation, also causing a loss of biodiversity. The problem of a depletion of natural resources is decreased by advances in drilling technology which led to a net increase in the amount of fossil fuel that is readily obtainable at the end of the century, as compared with the amount considered obtainable at the beginning of the century.

Significant people

Norfolk and Western Railway

City Point, bridging the Dismal Swamp, William Mahone, Civil War

Atlantic, Mississippi & Ohio Railroad meets Shenandoah Valley Railroad

Frederick J. Kimball, Big Lick becomes Roanoke, reaching Ohio

Coal

Roanoke Shops: building precision steam locomotives in-house

World Wars, Great Depression, and efficiencies

The Virginian Railway - an engineering marvel of its day

The Modern Railroad Merger Era 1960-1982

Autoracks: competing with trucking

Becoming part of Norfolk Southern - joining with a strong partner

Leaders of the Norfolk and Western

References

Books

Class I railroad

Current criteria

History

Consolidations

Table of Class I railroads by year

See also

References

1838

Events

Births

Month/day unknown

Deaths

Roanoke, Virginia

History

Geography

Economic Statistics: Roanoke MSA

Landmarks & Points of Interest

Arts, History & Culture in Roanoke

Speciality Histories about Roanoke

Hopper car

20th century

Overview

Important developments, events and achievements

Science and technology

Wars and politics

Culture and entertainment

Disease and medicine

Natural resources and the environment

Significant people

World leaders

Scientists

Humanities

Business

Aerospace pioneers

Military leaders

Spiritual figures

Artists