Lorraine was an unincorporated community in

Henrico County, Virginia Henrico County , officially the County of Henrico, is located in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 334,389 making it the fifth-most populous county in Virginia. Henrico County is incl ...

. Lorraine was named for Edward Lorraine who was the 19th century chief engineer of the James River and Kanawha Canal. According to the Library of Virginia, he was born in 1818. In 1842, he first worked as a rod man doing surveying work on the James River and Kanawha Canal, beginning a career of over 30 years. He was promoted to assistant engineer, and finally appointed chief engineer of the canal succeeding Walter Gwynn. Lorraine served in this position until his death from smallpox in December 1872. Lorraine became a station stop of the

Richmond and Allegheny Railroad The Richmond and Alleghany Railroad was built along the James River along the route of the James River and Kanawha Canal from Richmond on the Fall Line at the head of navigation to a point west of Lynchburg near Buchanan, Virginia, and combined ...

which was built on the defunct canal's right-of-way in the 1880s. Soon after completion, the railroad was acquired by the

Chesapeake and Ohio Railway The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway was a Class I railroad formed in 1869 in Virginia from several smaller Virginia railroads begun in the 19th century. Led by industrialist Collis P. Huntington, it reached from Virginia's capital city of Richmond t ...

. It became a major conduit for transportation of coal from southern West Virginia to the

coal pier A coal pier is a transloading facility designed for the transfer of coal between rail and ship. The typical facility for loading ships consists of a holding area and a system of conveyors for transferring the coal to dockside and loading it into t ...

on the harbor of

Hampton Roads Hampton Roads is the name of both a body of water in the United States that serves as a wide channel for the James River, James, Nansemond River, Nansemond and Elizabeth River (Virginia), Elizabeth rivers between Old Point Comfort and Sewell's ...

at Newport News. The line later became the James River line of

CSX Transportation CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of track. ...

, and continued to support eastbound coal traffic. Once a moderately busy passenger and freight station on the railroad, Lorraine was discontinued by the C&O in the mid 20th century.

References

Geography of Henrico County, Virginia Ghost towns in Virginia {{HenricoCountyVA-geo-stub

See also

References