Virginia Capitol Connections Summer 2019

Railroading in Virginia By Michael Abraham Railroading in America began on

• What if one locality has five locations for early voting, while an adjacent similarly populated locality has only one location? • How will inequities in locations, space, and parking affect voters with disabilities? There will always be a need for flexibility. But voters have a right to expect reasonably uniform treatment in their access to the ballot box. The General Assembly and Governor have directed that the State Board of Elections report back to them by December 1, 2019, on further legislation that may be necessary in order to implement early voting. The Registrars Association has been working with the Department of Elections and other statewide partners on preparing this report and providing feedback about the implementation of early voting. We appreciate the opportunity to work with the Governor, the General Assembly, the State Board of Elections, and the Department of Elections in ensuring that all voters are treated fairly and equally as we implement early voting. Walt Latham, General Registrar at York County, President of the Voter Registrars Association of Virginia. Because Amtrak is government subsidized (as, for that matter, are airports and flight operations, and highways), it is always begging at the governmental trough for funding. Amtrak faces significant operational challenges, as decades of underinvestment have left it with an aging infrastructure struggling to keep pace with increased demand. Still, Amtrak falls far behind many of the world’s trains, where its fastest reaches 150-mph and trains in China, Japan, Italy, France, and Spain routinely whisk passengers at speeds over 200-mph. Amtrak trains are frequently truncated or canceled due to weather events, infrastructure outages and repairs. America has abdicated its passenger rail leadership. And yet ridership is on a steady year-over- year increase. See Railroading in Virginia , continued on page 22 For most of its existence, it was headquartered in Roanoke. The N&W’s main line was from Norfolk through Roanoke to Cincinnati. In the Appalachian coal fields, these arteries spawned into dozens of spur capillaries, reaching into coal laden hollows ofVirginia, Kentucky, and especially West Virginia. The lion’s share of N&W’s revenue came from carrying coal to Norfolk for export markets, where N&W operates the world’s largest coal loading pier, and to Cincinnati and Columbus, for domestic markets in the Rust Belt. Railroads and Appalachian coal have a tight, co-dependent relationship, because it was impossible to transport the coal from tight mountain hollows to market without a train, and, at least in the steam era, impossible to run a locomotive without coal. Because of its dependence on coal, both for income and for motive power, the N&W stuck with steam locomotives longer than any other major railroad in the nation, switching to the operationally superior diesel-electric locomotives in 1958. N&W also was distinguished by building its own steam locomotives, employing thousands of design engineers, pipe fitters, welders, and boilermen. Like most American railroads, N&W provided passenger services and maintained a series of stations. The famous Powhatan Arrow, for example, plied the main line, originating in Norfolk. Because of the relative scarcity of population on the route, passenger service was always a minor part of its business, and never more than 5% of its operating revenue. It discontinued all passenger service in the early 1960s. As other railroads were ending passenger service as well, Amtrak was founded in 1971 as a quasi-public corporation to provide intercity passenger services across the country, essentially picking up the pieces of what was thought to be a doomed industry. But a funny thing happened; it didn’t die. As airports are seen as increasingly inconvenient and troublesome for passengers and highways become choked with traffic, more people are returning to the rails.

Christmas day, 1830, when a locomotive named the Best Friend of Charleston steamed passengers and crew on the ride of their lives out of Charleston, South Carolina, reaching an astounding 25 miles per hour. In the years after 1830, it was thought that the railroads would supplement the various roads and canals around the nation rather than supplant them. Nevertheless, right-of- way acquisition and track building activities were active, and by the mid 1850s, tracks

The Registrars Association is currently working on developing some standards. Among the areas we are looking at are (1) locations, parking, and space for voters and staff; (2) staffing; (3) voting machines and equipment; and (4) voter processing capacity. We want standards to take into account that there is a wide range of geographic size of localities in the Commonwealth. One locality is approximately the size of Rhode Island (Pittsylvania County), while some localities are only a few square miles. • How far should a voter have to travel in order to exercise her right to cast an early ballot? • How do we ensure that early voting locations are evenly placed geographically and take into account where voters live? We want standards to take into account the number of voters in a locality: • At any early voting location, how many voters can park at the facility? • How many will be able to fit in the building, especially if 30-60% of the total vote is being cast early? • How long will the line be? Will voters be lined up around the building and obstruct traffic? The zenith of American railroading was reached in 1916 at an incredible 254,037 miles of track, with the largest track mileage in the world. That is more than seven times the approximately 33,000 miles of Interstate highways that crisscross the nation now. Afterwards, track mileage began an inexorable decline that continues today. Railroads began in corporate ownership (and with the exception of Amtrak, still are, which we’ll discuss momentarily), with lines typically named for the communities they connected. While there are now still several independently run railroads in Virginia, most have been subsumed into either Norfolk Southern or CSX Transportation, which have a duopoly throughout much of the eastern states. Mahone lost control of his A, M & O during the financial panic of 1873, after which it was purchased by the Philadelphia private banking firm E.W. Clark & Co., and the Norfolk &Western was born. Continued from previous page extended from Lynchburg to Salem, Christiansburg, Wytheville, Abingdon, and Bristol, and by 1858 from Lynchburg to Petersburg and Petersburg to Norfolk. These lines would later become part of the Norfolk andWestern Railroad, now Norfolk Southern. Carriage of this line would greatly benefit the Confederate war effort. It would present a constant target for the Union, including the raid in May, 1864, when Federal General George Crook failed to repulse him. Crook proceeded to destroy the bridge over the New River and burn the station and much of the community of Cambria. One of the most colorful figures in Virginia railroading was William “Little Billy” Mahone. After the civil war, he brought together the railroads across southern Virginia to form the Atlantic, Mississippi & Ohio Railroad. It extended 408 miles from Norfolk to Bristol, including his marvel of engineering, the laying of thousands of cypress tree trunks in a corduroy pattern to cross the Great Dismal Swamp, which is still in use to this day.

V

V irginia C apitol C onnections , S ummer 2019

21