Virginia & Tennessee Railroad

V&T Stats

Founded/Chartered: 1848
Operated: 1852-1869, Bristol was reached in 1856
Abbreviation: V&T
Initial Route: Lynchburg VA to Bristol VA
Length: 204 Miles
Successors: Atlantic Mississippi & Ohio Railroad, Norfolk & Western Railway
Cities: Lynchburg VA, Roanoke VA, Marion VA, Abingdon VA, Bristol VA/TN
Key Individuals: John R. McDaniel, Robert L. Owen, Sr., William Mahone
Today: Norfolk Southern Railway

V&T History

While not a predecessor to the Southern Railway, the Virginia & Tennessee (V&T) was a key line that provided traffic and financial success to the railroad. The V&T became part of the Norfolk & Western Railway, but provided a key connection to the Southern Railway at Bristol TN/VA where the two railroads interchanged both freight and passenger trains.

Today, the Southern and Norfolk & Western are unified as the Norfolk Southern Railway.

More Southern Railway information will be added to this page and others in the days ahead. Please let me know if you have any edits that should be made or any content you are willing to share by utilizing the comment form below. Would enjoy hearing from you if you have similar interests in the railroads, the region, or model railroading.

V&T Map

To see the map in greater detail, use the zoom controls in your browser.

Blackford, W. W. & Ritchie & Dunnavant. (1856) Map & profile of the Virginia & Tennessee Rail Road. Richmond, lith of Ritchie & Dunnavant. [Map] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/gm72003016/.

Stacks on the Virginia & Tennessee by Ron Flanary

Photo and Narrative by Ron Flanary

“An excellent example of pre-Civil War railroad construction that is mostly intact and in service today for modern railroad traffic is the former Virginia & Tennessee, constructed from Lynchburg, Va. to Bristol, Va. between 1850 and 1856, when the tracks reached Bristol. There, it met the East Tennessee & Virginia, which had been completed from Knoxville to Bristol that same year. This line formed an important through passenger and mail route as well as for freight traffic. Both pikes were originally built to five-foot gauge.” As my friend Mark Hemphill has noted in his writings of early railroad construction, given the primitive nature of construction equipment available in this era, earth excavation to maintain uniform grade wasn’t quite the imperative it would be later with longer, heavier, and faster trains.

In fact, wherever possible, a route might be literally built along the existing topography by just cutting the trees, grubbing out the stumps, plowing out a right of way, and throwing down ties and rails.Minimal drainage structures were built to keep the railroad from floating away in times of flash flooding, but it would take years of betterments (including line changes to ease curves and grades once steam shovels, better explosives, and steel bridges vs. timber structures) before many of these routes could be considered viable main line routes.

On June 24, 1998, I was looking through a 300mm lens as this eastbound double stack container train rolled through a “swag” near Meadowview, Va. This stretch of swags and hogback ridges most certainly is part of the original construction of the V&T. Such undulating profiles can be difficult to negotiate, particularly for long, heavy freights. Improved train handling techniques, better air braking systems, and the use of dynamic brakes and distributed power (locomotives placed strategically in the train that receive their commands from the lead unit) have made such old alignments more manageable.

This remains an important route for NS to this day. Passenger proponents remain hopeful Amtrak service might eventually be extended from Roanoke to Bristol (with connections, perhaps, to Tennessee). The mixing of several 250-car freight trains with two seven or eight car passenger trains can be an operational nightmare if both are to maintain acceptable velocity. More and longer signaled sidings might be helpful, but the capital costs are staggering.

Southern-Railroads.org Sources and Resources

The following are excellent resources for those of you wanting to explore and learn more about the Southern Railway and its predecessors. These sources of information also serve as reference and historical materials for Southern-Railroads.org. Much of the content on the website is verified across multiple sources.

Association: Southern Railway Historical Association
Personal maps, timetables, track charts, and memorabilia
Book – Flanary, Lindsey & Oroszi: The Southern Railway
Book – Graybeal: The Railroads of Johnson City
Book – Harshaw: ‘Trains Trestles & Tunnels, Railroads of the Southern Appalachians’
Book – Lindsey: ‘Norfolk Southern 1995 Review’
Book – Poole: ‘A History of Railroading in Western North Carolina’
Book – Reisweber: ‘Southern Railway Power’
Book – Scales: Natural Tunnel, Nature’s Marvel in Stone’
Book – Stout: ‘Southern Railway: Through Passenger Service’
Book – Ward: ‘Southern Railway Varnish 1964-1979’
Book – Webb: ‘The Southern Railway System: An Illustrated History’
Book – Wiley & Wallace: ‘The Southern Railway Handbook’
Book – Withers & Sink: ‘Southern: A Motive Power Pictorial’
Book – Wolfe: Southern Railway Appalachia Division
Magazines – ‘Trains‘ , ‘Classic Trains‘
Website – Carolana.com – North Carolina Railroads, South Carolina Railroads
Website – Hawkinsrails.net
Website – Johnson’s Depot hosted by StateOfFranklin.net
Website – Multimodalways.org: Norfolk Southern Track Charts
Website – RailFanGuides.us for Johnson City
Website – SteamLocomotive.com
Website – TheDieselShop.us
Website – VirginiaPlaces.org – Railroad History of Virginia

Contact Us

Would enjoy hearing from you if you have questions, suggestions, edits, or content that you are willing to share. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have similar interests in the Southern or Model Railroads.

3Cs Websites

Appalachian-Railroads.org | Clinchfield.org | Southern-Railroads.org