The Interstate Railroad was 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 ...

in the southwest part of the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

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 ...

. It extended from the

Clinchfield Railroad The Clinchfield Railroad was an operating and holding company for the Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio Railway . The line ran from the coalfields of Virginia and Elkhorn City, Kentucky, to the textile mills of South Carolina. The 35-mile segmen ...

at Miller Yard in northeastern Scott County north and west to Appalachia and north to the main

yard The yard (symbol: yd) is an English unit of length in both the British imperial and US customary systems of measurement equalling 3 feet or 36 inches. Since 1959 it has been by international agreement standardized as exactly ...

Andover Andover may refer to: Places Australia *Andover, Tasmania Canada * Andover Parish, New Brunswick * Perth-Andover, New Brunswick United Kingdom * Andover, Hampshire, England ** RAF Andover, a former Royal Air Force station United States * Andove ...

, with many branches to the north into the mountains. The company still exists as an

operating subsidiary An operating subsidiary is a subsidiary of a corporation through which the parent company (which may or may not be a holding company) indirectly conducts some portion of its business. Usually, an operating subsidiary can be distinguished in that ...

of the

Norfolk Southern Corporation 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, ...

,Class I Railroad Annual Report: Norfolk Southern Combined Railroad Subsidiaries To The Surface Transportation Board For the Year Ending December 31, 2007
/ref> but is operated as if it were a Norfolk Southern Railway line.

Route description

The Interstate Railroad generally followed the valleys of the

Guest River The Guest River is a short tributary of the Clinch River in southwestern Virginia in the United States. It is part of the watershed of the Mississippi River by way of the Clinch, Tennessee and Ohio Rivers. According to the Geographic Names Inf ...

and Powell River, with only one summit, at

Norton Norton may refer to: Places Norton, meaning 'north settlement' in Old English, is a common place name. Places named Norton include: Canada * Rural Municipality of Norton No. 69, Saskatchewan *Norton Parish, New Brunswick **Norton, New Brunswick, a ...

, between those two rivers. The railroad began at the

's Miller Yard, along the

Clinch River The Clinch River is a river that flows southwest for more than through the Great Appalachian Valley in the U.S. states of Virginia and Tennessee, gathering various tributaries, including the Powell River, before joining the Tennessee River in Ki ...

between Dungannon and Carfax. It started off paralleling the Clinchfield to the northeast until its crossing of the

(the line between Scott County and Wise County). The Interstate crossed the Guest River and split away to the north, running first along its east shore and then along its west shore and through the short Swede Tunnel. The Interstate crossed the Guest River again, where the river turned west, and continued north through another tunnel to Maytown. At Maytown, the railroad turned west, continuing to follow the Guest River (and crossing it several times) via Riverview, Tacoma,

Ramsey Ramsey may refer to: Geography British Isles * Ramsey, Cambridgeshire, a small market town in England * Ramsey, Essex, a village near Harwich, England ** Ramsey and Parkeston, a civil parish formerly called just "Ramsey" * Ramsey, Isle of Man, t ...

, and Hawthorne to

, where it interchanged with the Norfolk and Western Railway and Louisville and Nashville Railroad. The Interstate ran west from Norton to Dooley, where it interchanged with the L&N again (at Dorchester Junction). From there it generally paralleled the Powell River past Josephine, Blackwood, and Kelly View to Appalachia. There it interchanged with the Southern Railway and again with the L&N and turned north alongside

Callahan Creek Callahan Creek is a stream in Boone County in the U.S. state of Missouri. It is a tributary of Perche Creek. The stream headwaters arise in northwest Boone County just southeast of Harrisburg adjacent to Missouri Route 124 (at ) and it flows so ...

to the main yard at

. Several branches continued north alongside creeks, ending at

Wentz Wentz is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Barney Wentz, American football player * Carson Wentz, American football player * Earl Wentz, American composer and pianist * Eiji Wentz, Japanese singer for the band WaT * Elisabet W ...

Roda Roda may refer to: Places *Stadtroda (called Roda until 1925), a town in Thuringia, Germany *Roda, Greece, a village in Corfu, Greece * Roda, Punjab, a town and Union Council of Punjab, Pakistan *Roda, Portugal, a village in Viseu district, Portu ...

, and

Derby Derby ( ) is a city and unitary authority area in Derbyshire, England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent in the south of Derbyshire, which is in the East Midlands Region. It was traditionally the county town of Derbyshire. Derby g ...

. Other branches left the mainline east of Norton (to Glamorgan and Dixiana), at Dorchester Junction (to Needmore), and east of Kelly View at Kent Junction (to Roaring Fork and Pardee). These branches all ran north alongside waterways; the one to Dixiana used the valley of the Guest River, and the one to Needmore ran along the Powell River.

Heritage unit

Unit 8105 at Weller Yard, Virginia June 21, 2019

As a part of Norfolk Southern's 30th anniversary, the company painted 20 new locomotives into predecessor schemes. NS #8105, a GE ES44AC locomotive, was painted into the Interstate scheme.

References

The Interstate Railroad
*

USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, a ...

topographic map In modern mapping, a topographic map or topographic sheet is a type of map characterized by large- scale detail and quantitative representation of relief features, usually using contour lines (connecting points of equal elevation), but histori ...

s {{DEFAULTSORT:Interstate Railroad Virginia railroads Predecessors of the Southern Railway (U.S.) Railway companies established in 1896 Wise County, Virginia