Wednesday, July 20, 2022

1931 NS/N&W/Virginian (VGN) Bridge over Kanawha River at Deepwater, WV

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

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

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"


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