N&W in 1904 -- Washington

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NORFOLK & WESTERN MAY GO TO WASHINTON [sic]
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Fear Wabash will Get Ahead of It -- Interesting Railroad Gossip
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    Washington, March 10. -- There is a possibility that the people of Virginia will in a few years have two more railroads giving them direct passage into Washington.  The Norfolk and Western, quickened by the fact that the Wabash is going to get ahead of it, is now figuring on carrying out one of its dreams of a decade, that of building into Washington from Luray or some other point on the line from Hagerstown to Roanoke.  Another project they have had in view is to come to Riverton Junction, where the Norfolk and Western crosses the Manassas branch of the Southern, and there, through a trackage agreement, taking the Southern into Washington.  Last fall engineers of the Norfolk and Western went over that portion of the Southern between Manassas and Riverton and examined every inch of the track between those points.  What report they made to the company is another question, and one on which no one here seems to have any information.  Meanwhile the Wabash is still taking pains to let it be known that they have not given up their determination to come into Washington, though they are very careful to keep the source of information from the public.
    The quickening zeal of he Norfolk and Western recalls how Scott, who built the Shenandoah Valley railroad outwitted Garrett, of the Baltimore and Ohio.  The Garrett interests started out to build a road from Harper's Ferry to Salem.  About the same time the Scott interests projected the Shenandoah Valley road, ostensibly to what was then Waynesboro Junction, on the Chesapeake and Ohio.  It was built to that point, and it was given out that there the road would stop.  About this time the New York fever had struck Garrett and his resources were all directed to building the Baltimore and Ohio to New York.  His motto became "To New York or bust," and we are told that he narrowly escaped doing both.  The Valley extension had reached Lexington and the grading was almost complete to Salem  But Garrett had everything tied up in his New York project, and would do nothing to extend the Virginia road.  And there Scott recognized his chance, and no sooner than he had done so he had a big force at work and before Garrett could recuperate his energies from the heavy strain the New York project had put him under, the Shenandoah Valley road was in Roanoke.  It had been a race for an objective point, and Scott had gotten on the ground floor.
    Such is the real reason why the Baltimore and Ohio never got further on its way to Salem than Lexington.  A Lexington man who is noted for his correct information about what is going to be done in railroad  circles predicts today that within a decade the Wabash and the Norfolk and Western both will have trains entering into Washington over their own lines.

Bluefield Daily Telegraph
March 11, 1904

[The article used the term "fact" about the Wabash getting ahead of the N&W, but used the term "gossip" in the sub-heading.  Most news items of that era about the Wabash's plans were in the realm of the latter term.]

Gordon Hamilton
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