The B-Line is a railroad line owned and operated by the

Norfolk Southern Railway The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad in the United States formed in 1982 with the merger of Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. With headquarters in Atlanta, the company operates 19,420 route miles (31 ...

in the U.S. state of Virginia. The most heavily-used section of the line runs from Front Royal east to Manassas along a former Southern Railway line. The B-Line extends west into Strasburg, although no trains serve that part of the branch anymore, as it possibly will be turned into a

rail-trail A rail trail is a shared-use path on railway right of way. Rail trails are typically constructed after a railway has been abandoned and the track has been removed, but may also share the right of way with active railways, light rail, or streetcar ...

. Its east end is at the Washington District, and it crosses the Hagerstown District at Front Royal. Since the 1999 breakup of

Conrail Conrail , formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do busin ...

, when Norfolk Southern acquired the Lurgan Branch from the north end of the Hagerstown District into Pennsylvania, the B-Line east of Front Royal has been a major connection, allowing traffic on the Washington District to bypass Washington, D.C. The B-Line supports mainly intermodal and manifest trains, although beginning in late 2018, Norfolk Southern began running rerouted coal unit trains on it more frequently than before.

History

The Manassas Gap Railroad opened in 1854 from Manassas to Strasburg. It became part of the Southern Railway and Norfolk Southern through leases and mergers.

References

{{commons category, B-Line (Norfolk Southern) Norfolk Southern Railway lines Rail infrastructure in Virginia Southern Railway (U.S.)