Szerkesztővita:Sierrahun/próbalap

Orange–Alexandria- vasútvonal
The engine "Firefly" on a trestle of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad.
Hossz:	237 km
Nyomtávolság:	1435 mm
Maximális sebesség:	60 km/h
0 Kiskunfélegyháza (140, 146, 155) Az 5-ös főút keresztezése 1,4 Egykori GMV iparvágány-kiágazás 1,5 Kunkert iparvágány-kiágazás 2,7 Városi park A 451-es főút keresztezése 6 Kunszállás 7,2 Csongrádi úti tanyák A 451-es főút keresztezése 10,2 Gátér A 451-es főút keresztezése 14,0 Kiskunfélegyházi határút 14,8 Kettőshalom 17,8 Kónyaszék 18,? Volt kónyaszéki rakodóvágány A 451-es főút keresztezése 23,4 Csongrád alsó 24,8 Csongrád Kisvasút Felgyő felé Tisza-híd 31 Tiszahídfő 31 Volt Tisza-parti rakodóvágány 33 Várfok Kurca-híd 130-as vonal Szolnok felé 37 Hékéd 39 Szentes 130-as vonal Hódmezővásárhely felé 43 Kántorhalom 45 Lapistó 46,8 Dónát 49 Kórógy mh. egykori rakodóvágánnyal 49,8 Pusztatemplom 52 Fábiánsebestyéni csemetekert 53,7 Fábiánsebestyén / Sváb-féle kisvasút egykori 148-as vonal Árpádhalom felé 55,7 Mikeccsárda Volt mikeccsárdai rakodóvágány 56,7 Almáskert (használaton kívül) 60 Újváros 60 Újvárosi rakodóvágány Kendergyári kisvasút Eperjes felé 64,2 Gádoros 67 Jurenák-major 69,6 Justhmajor 71 Eötvös-major Szentetornyai kisvasút 73,2 Szentetornya 75 Gyopárosi szőlők 75,9 Gyopárosfürdő Alföldi Kisvasút Rákóczitelep felé 77 Bónum 78 A 47-es főút felüljárója 79,2 Orosháza (135, 125, AEGV)

The Orange and Alexandria Railroad (O&A) was a railroad in Virginia, United States. It extended from Alexandria to Gordonsville, with another section from Charlottesville to Lynchburg. The road played a crucial role in the American Civil War, and eventually became an important part of the modern-day Norfolk Southern rail system.

A békeidőben

Egy alexandriai kereskedőcsoport lobbizása következtében seeking to compete with the ports of Baltimore and Richmond, decided to build a railroad to bring the products of the Virginia heartland, mint dohány és gabona to the Potomac River. Trains were still rickety, unreliable contraptions, yet the group persuaded the Virginia General Assembly to sanction a rail line to Orange County, about 90 miles inland. Orange County was already connected to Richmond by the Louisa Railroad, which was later known as the Virginia Central Railroad. They named the new railroad the Orange & Alexandria Railroad (O&A). The Virginia General Assembly issued a charter to the O&A on May 28, 1848, to run from Alexandria to Gordonsville. The Orange and Alexandria Railroad Company was founded in 1848 to divert hinterland products away from Baltimore and Richmond to Alexandria, Va. Construction began in 1850 and was completed and was completed to Culpeper in 1852 and to Gordonsville in April 1854, when it connected with the Virginia Central Railroad in Orange County. One of the directors of the O&A, Henry Daingerfield, subsequently bought 900 acres of land just west of Backlick Road. There were several natural springs on the property, so he called the area Springfield. He then persuaded the railroad to build its first station west of Alexandria on his land. Soon the station was also serving as the first post office for the new town of Springfield, and it made Daingerfield a lot of money. The Wilkes Street Tunnel was part of the Orange & Alexandria Railroad, founded in 1848 to promote trade with western Virginia. The Orange and Alexandria inaugurated its track in Alexandria on May 7, 1851 with a run to the north end of Union Street to the Wilkes Street Tunnel. Thus, the tunnel linked the railroad to warehouses and wharves along the waterfront. Located nearby, the Smith and Perkins foundry manufactured locomotives for the Orange and Alexandria and other railroads. Warrenton, originally on a proposed earlier route, was linked by a branch line in 1853. The Manassas Gap Railroad, the first rail line to cross the Blue Ridge Mountains, was completed to Strasburg in 1854 and joined Alexandria with the upper Piedmont Valley. Its longtime President was John S. Barbour Jr., Virginia lawyer, part-time delegate and son of U.S. Representative John Strode Barbour.

In 1854, the General Assembly granted the O&A the right to build southward from Charlottesville to Lynchburg. O&A paid for trackage rights over Virginia Central tracks from Gordonsville to Charlottesville. In 1860, the southern extension was completed, including lucrative connections to the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad and the South Side Railroad. The O&A also connected with the Manassas Gap Railroad (chartered in 1850), at Tudor Hall (today named Manassas for this junction) which gave it access to the Shenandoah Valley.

A vasút jelentősen fejlesztette Virginia kereskedelmét. Először a piedmonti régió farmerei, majd később a Shenendoah-völgyéi is terményüket és termékeiket olcsóbban tudták szállítani, mint korábban. Nem csak Washingtont és Richmondot tudták most már elérni, de a Potomac-folyó alexandriai kikötőjén keresztül, ahol tengerjáró hajók is ki tudtak kötni a hajószállítás is megnyílt előttük. Alexandriában, Richmondban és Lynchburgben ipar létesült. Washingtonból Lynchburgig az út nyolc órára rövidült a korábbi, elég kimerítő, három napos zötykölődő kocsiút helyett. Indeed, the O&A was the first railroad from the nation’s capital region to the south. Its completion in 1850 meant that for the first time, someone might travel from Boston to Richmond almost entirely by rail.

Az amerikai polgárháborúban

Fájl:Barricades on duke street.jpg

1861 barricades on Alexandria's Duke Street, erected to protect the Orange and Alexandria Railroad from Confederate cavalry.

Repairing damage after a Confederate cavalry raid

The O&A was strategically important during the Civil War (1861–1865) and was repeatedly fought over and wrecked. In connection with the Virginia Central, it was the only rail link between the capitals at Washington, D.C., and Richmond. An 1861 Union Army attempt to gain control of Manassas Junction led to the First Battle of Bull Run, and the junction traded hands numerous time during the war. Confederate Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson attacked it in the Battle of Manassas Station Operations to draw the Union into the 1862 Second Battle of Bull Run. The 1863 Battle of Brandy Station and Second Battle of Rappahannock Station were also fought near the railroad line.

The O&A depot and roundhouse at Alexandria were located in today's Carlyle/Eisenhower East area.

In Alexandria, the competing railroads also had separate terminals. As in Richmond, different investors were not inclined to share traffic with their rivals. The failure to connect railroads ensured wagon drivers ("draymen") had work hauling products between train stations, but it also had military consequences. Prior to the outbreak of fighting in the Civil War, Robert E. Lee - the military advisor to the governor of Virginia - was unable to get the owners of the Alexandria, Loudoun, and Hampshire (AL&H) raiload and the Orange and Alexandria (O&A) to build a piece of track connecting the railroads. As a result, when the Yankees occupied Alexandria on March 24, two valuable locomotives were isolated on the AL&H. To keep them from the Yankees, the locomotives were driven west towards Leesburg. Before the Manassas Line was abandoned in March, 1862, the locomotives were removed from the AL&H and carried across Loudoun and Fauquier counties to the Manassas Gap railroad at Piedmont Station (now Delaplane).

Reconstruction

The railroad entered Reconstruction in dire shape, with much of its track ripped up and most of its rolling stock destroyed. However, Barbour proceeded to rebuild the railroad, soon with the help of various politically connected financiers and his brother in law J.S.B. Thompson. In 1867, the O&A merged with the Manassas Gap Railroad (led by Edward Carrington Marshall) to become the Orange, Alexandria and Manassas Railroad.

After the Panic of 1873, the railroad was consolidated into the Virginia Midland Railway, which was controlled by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. It later became part of the Richmond and Danville Railroad, which went bankrupt in the Panic of 1893. The following year it was merged into the Southern Railway.

A cutoff between Orange and Charlottesville was incorporated in 1876 as the Charlottesville and Rapidan Railroad and opened in 1880. The Southern Railway acquired the line in 1914.

Modern times

In 1982, Southern Railway System joined the Norfolk and Western Railway to form the Norfolk Southern (NS) system. The former O&A tracks are also used by Amtrak and Virginia Railway Express (VRE) operates commuter railroad service along a portion of the historic line. The line from Orange to Gordonsville has been on long-term lease to the C&O Railway, which transferred to CSX, and now CSX subleases to Buckingham Branch Railroad, which operates it as the Orange Subdivision.

Among the traces of the original infrastructure are Hoofs Run Bridge and the Wilkes Street Tunnel in Alexandria.

Az Új O&A RR

The O&A made Alexandria its headquarters including a yard and shop area. Construction of the railroad started southward in 1850 at a point along the Potomac River waterfront. Tudor Hall, later renamed Manassas Junction (located in the area of today's Fairview Avenue road crossing east of the Manassas Amtrak passenger station), was reached in October 1851. The rails reached Gordonsville in 1854 where a link with the Virginia Central RR (later to become the Chesapeake & Ohio RR) provided a through route to Richmond and Charlottesville. Using trackage rights on the Virginia Central to reach from Gordonsville to Charlottesville, the O&A built southward from Charlottesville to reach Lynchburg by 1860.The O&A RR was the first railroad constructed on the south side of the Potomac River near Washington, DC. At that time a wagon road bridge across the Potomac existed at the site of today's Long Bridge, but was not able to carry the weight of rail traffic. All freight and passenger traffic across the river had to be carried by horse drawn wagon to reach the B&O in Washington. In 1854 an affiliate of the O&A RR called the Alexandria & Washington RR (A&W RR) was chartered which completed a line in 1858 from Alexandria the six miles to the foot of the bridge. To meet the need to ship supplies south during the Civil War, a new bridge was constructed in 1863 capable of carrying rail traffic. During the war the A&W RR was taken over by the US Government and the line was extended over the new bridge to a connection with the B&O RR in Washington. The US Military Railroad operated the A&W along with its connections, the Alexandria, Loudon & Hampshire, and the north end of the O&A RR as part of the Military Railroad of Northern Virginia. After the war the A&W RR, along with its extension to the B&O RR in Washington, was operated by the Washington, Alexandria and Georgetown RR.

In 1866, after the end of the Civil War, the B&O began to buy control of the O&A RR. Then, in 1870 under the control of the B&O RR, the Manassas Gap RR was merged into the O&A RR and the combined line was named the Orange, Alexandria & Manassas RR. Meanwhile the B&O suffered a serious setback in 1870 when the Baltimore & Potomac RR (B&P RR), a subsidiary of the PRR, built a line from Baltimore to Pope's Creek with a branch line from Bowie via Benning, Md to Washington and the Long Bridge. Then, through legal tactics, the B&P RR gained control of the Long Bridge. In the process the PRR severed the B&O's connection to the O&A and the south as the PRR also gained control of the line on the Virginia side of the river from the bridge to Alexandria in 1872. The B&O's response was to build a new branch line from their main line at Hyattsville, Md. to a point on the Potomac River across from Alexandria, Va. A car float operation was established to ferry freight cars across the river to connect with the tracks of the Orange, Alexandria & Manassas RR. This arrangement would remain in place until the turn of the century when the Potomac Yards were constructed.

In 1872 the OA&M RR was merged with the Lynchburg & Danville RR to form the Virginia & North Carolina RR which was renamed the following year as the Washington City, Virginia Midland & Great Southern RR which entered receivership in 1876. Also in 1876, the Charlottesville & Rapidan RR was incorporated to construct a direct line between Orange and Charlottesville. This line was eventually merged into the Southern railway and today serves as Norfolk Southern's mainline between the two cities. The original line between Orange and Gordonsville was leased to the Chesapeake & Ohio RR.

In 1881 the WC,VM&GS RR was reorganized by the B&O RR and the name was shortened to Virginia Midland RR (VM RR). The VM RR was leased to the Richmond & Danville RR in 1886. The R&D RR along with the VM RR became part of the Southern railway in 1894. Today, the original northern end of the line from the Potomac River front south through Alexandria, including the former shops area, has been removed and the area is being redeveloped for commercial and residential purposes. The north end of the line is now at an interlocking with CSX named AF TOWER, just south of the Alexandria passenger station.

Megállóhelyek és állomások

• 
  Alexandria (O&A vasút, az Alexandria, Loudoun és Hampshire vasút, valamint az Alexandria és Washington vasút végállomása
• 
  Wilkes Street alagút
• 
  Wilkes Street alagút2
• 
  Duke Street vasúti híd
• Fájl:Springfield
• Fájl:Ravensworth
• Fájl:Burke's Station
• Fájl:Fairfax Station
• Fájl:Clifton/Sangster Station
• Fájl:Union Mills station
• 
  Manassas állomás, a Manassas-hasadék vasút csomópontja
• Fájl:Bristow station
• Fájl:Catlett
• Fájl:Calverton
• Fájl:Midland
• Fájl:Remington
• Fájl:Elkwood
• Fájl:Brandy Station
• Fájl:Culpeper station
• Fájl:Winston
• Fájl:Mitchell's Station
• Fájl:Rapidan Station
• Fájl:Sangster's Station
• Fájl:Rappahannock station
• Fájl:Orange Court House állomás
• 
  Gordonsville, Az O&A és a Virginia Central vasút közös állomása
• 
  Charlottesville állomás, az O&A és a Virginia Central vasút közös állomása
• 
  Devereux állomás
• 
  Lynchburg állomás, a South Side vasút és az O&A vasút végállomása

Források

• ↑ Netherton: Fairfax Station: All Aboard! (angol nyelven). Fairfax, Va.: Friends of Fairfax Station, 153. o. (1995) 
• ↑ Library of Congress: August Faul: Map and profile of the Orange and Alexandria Rail Road with its Warrenton Branch and a portion of the Manasses [sic Gap Rail Road, to show its point of connection.] (angol nyelven). Library of Congress, 1854
• ↑ The New O&A RR: Michael Burke: A New Look On An Old Railroad That Helped Build A Nation (angol nyelven). The New Orange and Alexandria Railroad Historical Society
• ↑ Virginiaplaces.org: összefoglaló Virginia vasútvonalairól és Virginia Railroad Cities
• ↑ Springfield's Rail History: Springfield's Rail History]
• Csiegel's Orange & Alexandria Railroad page
  • 1948 photo of Springfield Station
• Fairfax Station Railroad Museum
• Civil War photographs of the Orange & Alexandria at the Library of Congress
• Norfolk & Western history page
• 1851 map
• 1854 map
• 1861 map
• "Map of Warrenton Junction, Orange and Alexandria R.R., Virginia shewing destruction of R.R. by enemy, October 1863."