Virginian Railway

Defunct American railroad Virginian RailwayVGN 36 Fairbanks-Morse H-16-44 diesel locomotive crossing the diamond with Norfolk & Western Railway at South Norfolk, VAOverviewHeadquartersNorfolk, VirginiaReporting markVGNLocaleDeepwater, West Virginia – Norfolk, VirginiaDates of operation1907–1959SuccessorNorfolk and WesternTechnicalTrack gauge4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge The Virginian Railway (reporting mark VGN) was a Class I railroad located in Virginia and West Virginia in the United States. The VGN was created to transport high quality "smokeless" bituminous coal from southern West Virginia to port at Hampton Roads. History Virginian 4, the last surviving steam engine of the Virginian Railway, on display at the Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke, Virginia. Built by baldwin in 1910 Retired: 1957 Early in the 20th century, William Nelson Page, a civil engineer and coal mining manager, joined forces with a silent partner, industrialist financier Henry Huttleston Rogers (a principal of Standard Oil and one of the wealthiest men in the world), to develop the Deepwater Railway, a modest 85-mile long short line railroad to access untapped bituminous coal reser