The Washington Subdivision is a

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

line in

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

owned by

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 leased and operated by the

Buckingham Branch Railroad Buckingham Branch Railroad is a Class III railroad, Class III short-line railroad operating over 275 miles (443 km) of historic and strategic trackage in Central Virginia. Sharing overhead traffic with CSX and Amtrak, the company's headqu ...

. The line is part of the BB's Richmond & Alleghany Division. The line splits from the Norfolk Southern

Washington District The Washington District is a Norfolk Southern Railway line in the U.S. state of Virginia that connects Alexandria and Lynchburg. Most of the line was originally built from 1850 to 1860 by the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, with a small portion ...

line at

Orange Orange most often refers to: *Orange (fruit), the fruit of the tree species '' Citrus'' × ''sinensis'' ** Orange blossom, its fragrant flower *Orange (colour), from the color of an orange, occurs between red and yellow in the visible spectrum * ...

. The

Piedmont Subdivision it, Piemontese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographics1_title2 ...

splits to the east at Gordonsville. It ends at

Charlottesville Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county seat of Albemarle County, which surrounds the city, though the two are separate legal entities. It is named after Queen Cha ...

where it once again crosses the Washington District, and the

North Mountain Subdivision North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating direction or geography. Etymology The word ''north'' is ...

continues west.

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

's ''

Cardinal Cardinal or The Cardinal may refer to: Animals * Cardinal (bird) or Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds **''Cardinalis'', genus of cardinal in the family Cardinalidae **''Cardinalis cardinalis'', or northern cardinal, the ...

'' operates over the entire line.

History

The majority of the line from Charlottesville to Gordonsville was originally constructed by the

Virginia Central Railroad The Virginia Central Railroad was an early railroad in the U.S. state of Virginia that operated between 1850 and 1868 from Richmond westward for to Covington. Chartered in 1836 as the Louisa Railroad by the Virginia General Assembly, the railr ...

in the 1840s. The short portion from Gordonsville to Orange was built by the

Orange and Alexandria Railroad The Orange and Alexandria Railroad (O&A) was a railroad in Virginia, United States. Chartered in 1848, it eventually extended from Alexandria to Gordonsville, with another section from Charlottesville to Lynchburg. The road played a crucial rol ...

and completed in 1854. Through mergers, the O&A became part of 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 ...

and the Virginia Central became part of C&O and later

. CSX had

trackage rights Railway companies can interact with and control others in many ways. These relationships can be complicated by bankruptcies. Operating Often, when a railroad first opens, it is only a short spur of a main line. The owner of the spur line may con ...

over the Norfolk Southern Railway's

(former O&A) from Orange to

Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...

until those rights were terminated on March 20, 1994. In 2004, the

leased the Charlottesville–Gordonsville portion from CSX and subleased the Gordonsville–Orange piece, still owned by Norfolk Southern.

Surface Transportation Board The Surface Transportation Board (STB) of the United States is a federal, bipartisan, independent adjudicatory board. The STB was established on January 1, 1996, to assume some of the regulatory functions that had been administered by the Intersta ...

Docket FD_34495_0
Buckingham Branch Railroad Company--lease--CSX Transportation, Inc., November 5, 2004 In 2019, the State of Virginia announced it would purchase the entire line from CSX that includes the Washington Subdivision, in order to use it for passenger service between

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the No ...

and Roanoke.

References

{{reflist Former CSX Transportation lines Rail infrastructure in Virginia Chesapeake and Ohio Railway