NORFOLK AND WESTERN RAILWAY COM PANY, THE, primarily a coal carrier, with a total investment of $454,318,927.66 and a total capitalization of $163,640,600 on Dec. 31, 1934, employed in 1934, 18,00o persons and operated m. of track in six States in the United States, namely: Vir ginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, Ohio, and Ken tucky. Its main line runs from Norfolk and Lambert Point, Va., the eastern terminus, on the Port of Hampton Roads, through ag ricultural, livestock and mineral sections of Virginia, through vast coal fields in West Virginia and thence into Ohio to Cincinnati and Columbus, the western terminals. A line from Roanoke, Va., to Hagerstown, Md., makes connections for the east and north; two lines into North Carolina, one from Roanoke, Va., to Winston Salem and the other from Lynchburg, Va., to Durham, make con nections with the south. One of the first railroads in the country to employ electric traction, the N. and W. greatly increased its operating efficiency by electrifying 210 m. of track on mountain grades in West Virginia. The coal traffic of the road has grown from 70,00o tons in 1883 to over 30,000,00o tons in 1934.
The road had its beginning in Virginia in 1837 as the City Point Railroad running between Petersburg and City Point, a distance of ten miles. The South Side (which purchased the
City Point), Norfolk and Petersburg, and Virginia and Tennessee railroads, all in Virginia and built between 1849 and 1858, running from Norfolk to the Tennessee line at Bristol, consolidated in 1870 as the Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio R.R. Co., with a total trackage of 479 miles. This road was sold in 1881 and became the Norfolk and Western Railroad Company. Between 1881-91 it built three lines into the coal fields of Virginia and West Virginia extending beyond to Ohio and acquired by purchase two other roads, one running from near Ironton, Ohio to Columbus, and the other, from Roanoke to Hagerstown. In Sept. 1896, the rail road was organized as the Norfolk and Western Railway Company. Later in the year it purchased the two lines running from Virginia into North Carolina. In 1901 it bought a second line in Ohio, from Sciotoville to Cincinnati. Since that time the road has had a steady development, with double tracking, branch construction and the complete modernization of all its facilities. (A. C. N.)