Punditry & Prose
Commentary: A New Dawn for a Historic Railroad
One exciting aspect of the Shenandoah Rail Trail project is the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to preserve and protect an intact historic railway corridor that reconnects the visiting public and local people with the amazing 175-year history of the railroad and the communities it connected.
An aerial view of the bridge over the North Fork of the Shenandoah River. (Courtesy of Friends of the Shenandoah Rail Trail)
An unused rail corridor in the Shenandoah Valley sparks a fight over what’s next
The Shenandoah Rail Trail corridor began as the Manassas Gap Railroad at the dawn of Virginia’s railroad history. State legislation in 1850 created it to serve the northern Shenandoah Valley; construction began the next year. Virginia built the railroad through tax-payer-approved investments by local governments along the route. Excited by the prospect of finding markets for their agricultural and industrial products, residents also invested.
Map of the Manassas Gap Railroad and its extensions; September 1855. (Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division)
When the Civil War began, no one could have anticipated this new line’s outsized role in that tragic conflict. In 1861, when Confederate Gen. Joseph Johnston employed the line to move and deploy troops at Manassas, it marked the first time in history that a railroad was used in that manner.
The railroad became an integral part of military strategy. Both sides fought for its control, pulling up rails and burning bridges and ties. In the process, the line was destroyed and rebuilt countless times until it was in ruins by the war’s end. In 1867, the Virginia legislature assisted in rebuilding the now-merged line. With new capital, the line was rebuilt along the approximate original route and expanded south to Harrisonburg.
Once again, the railroad prospered, taking agricultural products out of the Valley and returning with important commercial goods and supplies. A booming passenger service connected the Valley to the outside world and brought that world to the Valley to appreciate our historical and natural resources.
One hundred and seventy-five years after the Manassas Gap railroad ushered in the dawn of a new transportation age, this historic railroad now sits at the twilight of its life. Highways, automobiles, and tractor-trailer routes irrevocably changed transportation dynamics. The railway’s passenger service ended 75 years ago, in 1948. Freight services became economically unviable and disappeared section by section over the last three decades until the small remaining active segment ceased in 2020.
Since then, infrastructure has crumbled. In many places, ties no longer exist, and trees grow through tracks. Now, there is an opportunity to preserve the entire corridor and its history by bringing it back into service as an uninterrupted linear pedestrian and cyclist trail while simultaneously protecting and preserving the physical evidence of the 175-year railroad’s story.
This will be exciting and challenging. Consider that over its life, the actual train bed and the bridges have changed in ways large and small. Virtually nothing remains from the Civil War era railroad, but even after the line was rebuilt and expanded, its tracks and rights-of-way changed with repairs, upgrades, maintenance, and road changes. Occasional disasters, like when the 462-foot bridge at Narrow Passage collapsed in 1876, also transformed the old railroad.
The Shenandoah Rail Trail corridor will weave those subtle line variations into a seamless and continuous storybook of history. Pedestrians and bicyclists will follow the trail to the sacred battlefields where the story of our nation’s tragic Civil War played out. They will visit communities along the path and learn how their lives and livelihoods were – and will continue to be, with the existence of this linear park – inextricably linked to this historic railroad.
As with any project involving federal funding, the Shenandoah Rail Trail partners understand and welcome National Historic Preservation Act (Section 106) involvement. This robust process of studying the corridor over its entire history includes archaeological, documentary, and oral history consultation to help identify, evaluate, and interpret historical resources. The step-by-step process under historic preservation oversight provides guidance on how to create a rail trail that will bring to light important resources while avoiding, minimizing, and mitigating adverse effects.
Through this process, a fading cultural resource built by and for the Valley people – which has served the Shenandoah Valley through times of war and peace, bounty, and depression – will not be lost. Rather, it is poised to become an enduring, visible, and dynamic legacy, and this historic railroad corridor will see a new dawn as the Shenandoah Rail Trail.
by Nancy Sorrells, Virginia Mercury
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