James River and Kanawha Canal - Competing With Railroads

Competing With Railroads

Railroads began to emerge with more efficient transportation beginning in the 1830s, long before the canal was finally completed. Damage which the canal incurred during the American Civil War (1861–1865) was never completely repaired, though Armistead Lindsay Long had come in as Chief Engineer following his service in the war. Finally the canal could not compete with the railroads' better efficiency.

By the time the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway was built through to the Ohio River in 1873, the doom of the canal as a through route was clear. To connect with the railroads, the James River and Kanawha Canal Company was authorized in 1876 to build the Buchanan and Clifton Forge Railway to connect the westernmost point of the canal with the railroad.

However, in 1878, both the canal and the Buchanan and Clifton Forge Railway were sold to the Richmond and Allegheny Railroad company, which built tracks along the towpaths. That railroad was sold to the C&O. Thus Clifton Forge became the division point of the large east-to-west system that resulted when the pioneer roads were combined under the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway Company.

Today, CSX trains loaded with coal from the mountains follow the old canal route, much of it at a gentler "water level" gradient. They are headed to port at Newport News on Hampton Roads. The Buckingham Branch Railroad, a short-line railroad, has a lease to operate the original C&O alignment over the former Virginia Central Railroad, including the Mountain Subdivision.