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The Manassas Gap Railroad, 1852-1867
The Manassas Gap Railroad, 1852-1867
By John Toler
The railroad line that crosses northern Fauquier County has a long and colorful history. Not long after construction on the north-south Orange & Alexandria Railroad was started in 1848, another group began the planning for a new east-west rail line – to be called the Manassas Gap Railroad – that would connect the farms and markets in the Shenandoah Valley eastward with the markets in Alexandria.
The line would pass through Warren, Fauquier and Prince William counties, and connect with the O&ARR at Tudor Hall, later called Manassas Junction, then just Manassas.
Edward Carrington Marshall (1805-1882), was the son of Chief Justice John Marshall, and had served in the Virginia General Assembly from 1836-1838. Acting on his father’s belief that developing Virginia’s transportation facilities should be a top priority, he was a driving force in building the new line.
Marshall lined up stockholders, including wealthy landowners, merchants and farmers seeking an economical way to ship their agricultural products, and was elected president of the new corporation. Active supporters included Edward Carter Turner, James William Foster and Robert Beverley.
On March 9, 1850, the corporation was granted a charter by the Virginia General Assembly to start building a rail line from the terminus of the O&ARR at Tudor Hall west through Manassas Gap in the Blue Ridge, and from there, south to Strasburg and into the Shenandoah Valley.
Survey work started in August 1850, and was completed by Sept. 2, 1851. But mapping the route of the MGRR was not without issues. Directors from northern Fauquier originally wanted to run the line through their properties along present day U.S. 50 to Ashby’s Gap, and Alfred Rector, a major stockholder, allegedly insisted that the MGRR loop past his store and warehouse in Rectortown.
Construction began at Tudor Hall soon afterward and headed west. As with other railroad projects, in addition to local farm labor, many of the workers were Irish immigrants.
Construction companies were also hired to work on the railroad, especially when specialized engineering was needed to build bridges and culverts, as well as handling vertical walls and slopes.
Very detailed contracts were written that clearly outlined the scope of the work, the level of quality expected, and the predictable costs. But even so, there were disputes, especially when contractors ran into solid rock and had to blast their way through.
The tracks reached The Plains in June 1852; Salem (Marshall) in July; and Rectortown in August. By December 1852, the new line had reached Markham.
However, upon reaching the foothills of the Blue Ridge, the project slowed considerably. It took until November 1853 to reach Linden, and an additional eleven months to reach Strasburg, completing the first phase on Oct. 19, 1854.
Along with the rail line construction, the MGRR began acquiring new locomotives and rolling stock. By 1860, the MGRR owned nine locomotives and 230 railcars of all kinds, and had erected 15 brick and 24 wooden buildings along the line. On an annual basis, the company was transporting 28,000 tons of freight, and carried 23,000 passengers.
War and recovery
The strategic value of a rail line in an area of active fighting was demonstrated in the early months of the Civil War. In the build-up to the First Battle of Manassas in July 1861, troops under Confederate Gen. P.G. T. Beauregard and Union Gen. Irvin McDowell fought over control of Manassas Junction.
As battle lines were being drawn, Gen. T. J. Jackson’s infantrymen, who had been in the Shenandoah Valley, marched to Piedmont Station (Delaplane), and boarded trains there that carried them over the MGRR tracks to Manassas, joining the battle on July 19, 1861.
On May 5, 1862, 1,400 troops under Col. John W. Geary marched in from Loudoun County and occupied the 25-mile MGRR corridor from The Plains to Manassas Gap.
Ten days later, Geary’s widely spaced troops were attacked by Confederate cavalrymen under Col. Thomas T. Munford, who raided a supply train about a mile from Linden, and took 15 prisoners. By May 26, Geary withdrew east to Broad Run Station.
The Second Battle of Manassas on Aug. 28-30, 1862 was preceded by the successful raid on Union stores at Manassas Junction on Aug. 26-27, and the Battle of Thoroughfare Gap. By then, the MGRR no longer played a part, and was described as “…now weed-ridden and disused” by John J. Hennessy in Return to Bull Run (1993).
By the time the Civil War ended, the MGRR was left in shambles. Its tracks, rolling stock and infrastructure had been destroyed or carried off, and the directors could not obtain financial backing for reconstruction.
Finally, a joint resolution adopted by the Virginia General Assembly on Jan. 31, 1866 authorized “…the transfer of property, charter and franchises of the Manassas Gap Railroad Company and the stock shares in the same to the Orange & Alexandria Railroad Company.”
The two lines became one on Feb. 14, 1867, and renamed the Orange, Alexandria and Manassas Railroad. Rebuilding of the old MGRR line was to be completed in two years.
The OA&MRR was later acquired by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, and was known as its Virginia Midland subsidiary. Veteran railroad executive John S. Barbour was put in charge until retiring in 1882.
For the next 12 years, the railroads based in Virginia underwent a series of mergers and acquisitions, culminating in the creation of the Southern Railway in 1894. Fairfax Harrison (1869-1938) became the president of the Southern in 1913, and began making significant changes in the operation and large investments in infrastructure. By 1916, the Southern was operating on over 8,000 miles of track in 13 states.
Harrison built Belvoir, his home near Marshall in 1914, and had his own personal railroad station on the property so that he could easily commute to Washington, D.C.
Over the next 65 years, the Southern built up its customer base, survived the Great Depression and two World Wars, but faced aggressive competition. In 1982, the Southern Railway was placed under the control of the Norfolk Southern Corp., and in 1990, renamed the Norfolk Southern Railway.
Passenger service on the line through Fauquier County was eliminated in 1947. On board the last passenger train to run from the Shenandoah Valley to Manassas were the late Robert L. Sinclair of The Plains, then age four, and his older sister Clara.
They boarded the train at The Plains, and rode it to the station at Broad Run, where their father met them. “Clara had heard that this would be that last passenger train on the line, and she wanted her baby brother to have something to tell his grandchildren,” recalled Mr. Sinclair. “Although I was very young, I still remember the train ride, the smoke and the cinders in the air …and it precipitated my life-long love of railroading.”
Steam-powered excursion trains ran on the lines from the late 1970s to the early 1990s, and Mr. Sinclair could relive his earlier experience on the rails when excursion trains took passengers down the line to the annual Fall Festival of Leaves in Front Royal.
