Bridge: (Bridge Hunter; no Historic Bridges; B&T; Satellite)

Deepwater Bridge (DB) Tower: (Satellite, the western end of the Virginian Railroad.)

2015 Mike Flickr via BridgeHunter, License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike (CC BY-SA)

Crossing the Kanawha River

The Virginian Railway bridge at Deepwater, West Virginia.

Photo from WVU West Virginia & Regional History via BridgeHunter
[BridgeHunter's caption is "1st train across new bridge in 1915," but I read a date of Mar 15, 1931.
Note that we can see that the falsework under the truss has yet to be removed.]
Vickie Thomas posted

Crossing the New River in 1931. [Comments correct the river as Kanawha.]

Credit: WVRHC

Randall Hampton shared

The end of the Virginian, at Deepwater WV

Troy Nolen: Just for the record, this is not Deepwater, WV.

Deepwater is on the other side of the river, this is technically Alloy, WV.

The VGN interchanged with the C&O at Deepwater, and with the NYC at Alloy

So what this is, is a VGN 2-6-6-6 about to interchange a train to the NYC at Alloy

Randall Hampton: Looks like there's some kind of temporary wooden structure out in the water on the far side, from the construction project. I thought it might be trees in high water until I noticed some cross braces up high.

Dennis DeBruler: Randall Hampton I had noticed that also. They ran the "first train" while the falsework used to build the truss was still in place.

Southern West Virginia Online posted four photos with the comment:

The Virginian Railway Bridge at Deepwater has carried trains across the Kanawha River since 1931.
Originally built as a connection to the NYC Railway and then used by the Virginian Railway, the steel truss bridge became part of the Norfolk & Western system after the 1959 merger with the Virginian Railway and is now used by Kanawha River Railroad.
It stands as a lasting symbol of the railroad that helped open southern West Virginia’s rich coalfields to national and international markets.

Doug Bess: The bridge was built new in 1931 to connect with the then New York Central. There was no other earlier crossing of the Kanawha River. The bridge is a combination of deck plate girders, a thru truss and a thru girder over the former C&O. There is also a separate deck plate girder over State Route 61 that still has the VIRGINIAN name on it.

Lowell Elkins: I've heard that the track is on a constant downgrade from there all the way to Norfolk. And that if you could get a coal car rolling, it would roll all the way to Norfolk.

Doug Bess: Lowell Elkins there are a few grades between Deepwater and Mullens. One example is Deepwater to Silver Gap near Oak Hill.

East of Mullens is the roughly 2% grade to Clarks Gap. Then it is downhill through Princeton, Glen Lyn, VA. At Whitethorne, pushers were stationed to assist with trains up to Merrimac Tunnel.

After that it was pretty much downhill through Roanoke and on to Norfolk.

H Reid's book "The Virginian Railway" features a fold out map that shows the profile of the main from Deepwater to Sewells Point. Unfortunately the book has been long out of print for many years.

Randall Hampton shared

Doug Bess commented on the above post
Here is a picture I took of N&W time freight #72 in 1967, about 8 years after the merger of the VGN into the N&W.

Britt Childress: Doug Bess nice slice of time right there! Typical NW running long hood forward.

Larry Allen commented on the above post

Angela Sims commented on the above post, cropped

1 of 4 photos posted by Bridges & Tunnels with Sherman Cahal

The construction of the Deepwater Railroad Bridge over the Kanawha River in Deepwater, West Virginia was one of the Virginian Railway's (VGN) more significant legal battles.

The VGN had long sought an outlet for coal mined in West Virginia and Virginia with ports along Lake Erie in Ohio and at one point had acquired land along the Great Lakes for a terminal. Those plans never materialized, as did plans to acquire or lease the Kanawha & Michigan Railroad (K&M) and other railways.

After the conclusion of World War I, the VGN sought a physical connection with the K&M, now a subsidiary of the New York Central Railroad (NYC), at Deepwater so that it could interchange traffic but it faced opposition from the C&O which questioned its competitor’s authority to build that link. The difficulty for the VGN was that the only connections the VGN had to the west were the C&O and Norfolk & Western Railway, both of which were competitors with it on eastbound traffic from Deepwater to Hampton Roads. The connection with the NYC would give the VGN a non-competitive route to the west. The C&O was also worried that the VGN would merge into the NYC which was proposed at that time.

In 1930, the Interstate Commerce Commission ruled in favor of the VGN. The railroad contracted with the Virginia Bridge & Iron Company to construct a combination Warren through truss and plate girder crossing of the Kanawha which was opened to traffic in March 1931.

Check out more photos and history of this graceful bridge at  
http://bridgestunnels.com/location/deepwater-railroad-bridge/

Mike Tewkesbury posted
The Deepwater Railroad Bridge crossing the Kanawha River in Fayette County. The bridge was built by the Virginia Bridge and Iron Company of Roanoke in 1930. The first train crossed on 15 March 1931. My buddy and I found this quite by accident after turning around to get a better look at a girder bridge that we drove under. Add to that, we also discovered the Deepwater Tunnel that was standing right behind us.

Doug Bess: Here is the link to my piece on my website that goes into more about this area that you might enjoy seeing: https://wvrails.net/?p=32

Randall Hampton shared ·

The last mile of the old Virginian.

Matt Robertson: It does more than cross the river. There was a huge fight over the construction of the bridge. Without the bridge the Virginian terminated at the C&O which runs along one side of the Kanawha/New River. The bridge connected them with the K&M (NYC) AND allowed them to serve the alloy plant on the other side of the river -- a win for both.

Mike Tewkesbury commented on his post
The Deepwater Tunnel is 491.5 feet [150m] long

1965 Powellton and Montgomery Quads @ 24,000

WVRails, this webpage has several photos of the bridge.
"Deepwater Bridge (DB) Tower. This was the western end of the Virginian Ry. New York Central line from Columbus, OH to Gauley Bridge, WV is to the left. Track next to building leads to the former VGN mainline which crosses the Kanawha River beyond the searchlight signal in the background."
"By 1976, Penn Central and other bankrupt northeastern railroads were conveyed to Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail), and by 1999, CR was split between NS and CSXT. The Conrail (NYC) West Virginia Secondary went to NS. Then in 2016, NS leased most of the Secondary and also the former Princeton-Deepwater District of NS (VGN) from Deepwater to Maben, WV to the Kanawha River Railroad, LLC, a subsidiary of WATCO"

Southern West Virginia Online posted eight photos with the comment:

HISTORIC RAILWAY BRIDGE IN FAYETTE COUNTY STILL IN USE
The Deepwater Railroad Bridge, originally constructed for the Virginian Railroad, continues to serve as an important rail crossing over the Kanawha River in Fayette County.
Today, the bridge is operated by the Kanawha River Railroad and carries trains along the line between Alloy and Elmore.
The route is used primarily for coal transportation, a major industry in the region.
In addition to coal traffic, a CSX local freight train known as the “Gauley Trolly” utilizes trackage rights in the area. The train exits the CSX mainline at Deepwater, crosses the bridge, and travels to access the industrial plant in Alloy.
The bridge dates back nearly a century. In December 1929, the Interstate Commerce Commission indicated it would support the Virginian Railroad’s long-standing plan to build a Kanawha River crossing at Deepwater.
Approval was officially granted in January 1930.
Construction was carried out by the Virginia Bridge & Iron Company, which built the structure using a combination Warren through truss and plate girder design. The first train crossed the bridge on March 15, 1931.