Building The Virginian Railway - Deepwater Railway: West Virginia Short-line

Deepwater Railway: West Virginia Short-line

In 1896, in the western portion of Fayette County, Col. Page formed a small logging railroad, Loup Creek and Deepwater Railway which extended from an interchange point at Deepwater, West Virginia with the C&O. on the south bank of the navigable Kanawha River about four miles (6 km) up a steep grade into the mountainous terrain southward, following the winding Loup Creek to reach a sawmill at Robson. Col. Page, who had been involved with building the C&O and more recently in developing some of its coal branches, arranged for the larger railroad to operate his short line to the sawmill on the Loup Creek Estate under a verbal agreement which was to last until 1903.

In 1898, Col. Page renamed his logging railroad to become the Deepwater Railway, and developed a scheme to convert the railroad into a coal hauler and extend it into portion of the New River coalfield not yet reached by the nearby C&O, originally to somewhere near Glen Jean. He enlisted the support of millionaire industrialist Henry Huttleton Rogers in the plan.

In 1902, with Rogers' investment made quietly through the Loup Creek Estate and the Loup Creek Colliery, the Deepwater Railway charter was amended to provide for the short-line railroad to connect with the existing lines of the C&O along the Kanawha River at Deepwater and the N&W at Matoaka. After the extension provided by the 1902 amendment, the total distance involved, all within West Virginia, was about 80 miles (130 km). This longer version than the 1898 scheme would provide access to additional coal lands not only in the New River Field, but also along the upper Guyandotte River basin through Mullens and into area under development by the N&W.

By planning interchange points with the two large railroads, Page could anticipate competition and negotiation of fair rates with the only two big railroads nearby. However, as he developed the short-line Deepwater Railway and began attempting to negotiate with either of the larger railroads, he ran into an unexpected brick wall. Page had realized that each major railroad had considered the territory his company was developing to be potentially theirs for future growth, but when each was faced with his new traffic going instead to a competitor, he had thought negotiations would still be possible. However, he got nowhere with either of them.

There was a reason, and it presented a serious obstacle to the Deepwater Railway plans: collusion. It was only later revealed that at the time, both the C&O and the N&W were essentially under the common control of the even larger Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) and New York Central Railroad (NYC), whose leaders, Alexander Cassatt and William Vanderbilt respectively, had secretly entered into a "community of interests" pact. The C&O and the N&W had apparently agreed with each other to refuse to negotiate with Col. Page and his upstart Deepwater Railway. It wasn't just the rates that Page wanted to share, which could possibly have been negotiated. The bigger issue was the coal lands which both larger railroads, especially the N&W, had large investments in.

If Col. Page and his Deepwater Railway scheme had met with an unpleasant surprise, as it turned out, the big railroads were in for an even bigger one. Page didn't give up his scheme, as most surely must have been anticipated. Instead, he stubbornly continued building his short-line railroad through some of the most rugged terrain of the Mountain State, to the increasing puzzlement of the leaders of the big railroads. They were unaware that one of Page's investors (who were silent partners in the venture) was the powerful Rogers. Henry Rogers was an old hand at mineral and transportation development, and his projects and investments seldom failed. His tenacity, energy, and organizational skills had led him to become one of John D. Rockefeller's key men at the Standard Oil Trust. Always ready to do corporate battle, Rogers wasn't about to have the Deepwater investment foiled by the big railroads.

See also article Henry H. Rogers

When Page and Rogers realized the Deepwater Railway project would have no connection options with other railroads to ship its coal, they set about exploring alternatives. One of these was securing their own route out of the mountains of West Virginia, if necessary, all the way to the sea, if suitable connections could not be made in Virginia. By forcing Rogers' hand, the seeds for what would become the Virginian Railway had been planted by the C&O and N&W.