The
History of the
“The
The James River
Railway and Riverboat Company started with
chartering of the James River Logging Railroad in
1836. The railroad was owned and
operated by The Royal Timber Corporation to haul timber from the surrounding
forests. The original charter called for
the railroad to start at City Point and follow
the Appomattox River down to Petersburg, cross the Appomattox River west of
Petersburg, and finally terminate somewhere in the forest. Royal Timber Corp. founded several company
towns and numerous camp towns for its saw mill workers, lumber jacks, and
railroad employees. Hope's Well was a
company town for the mill and its workers. Ridgeland was founded as a large company town
for the lumber jacks. Highland Colony
was founded as the James River Logging Railroad's center of operations. It contained a small yard where the log cars
would be made into trains and sent to the mill or broken up and sent to various
logging sites. Highland Colony also
contained a locomotive terminal where the locomotives could be serviced. All construction (railroad, saw mill, and
towns) was started in 1837 and was
completed at various times over the next year.
Late in 1838 the James River Logging Railroad actually
began daily operations that connected these towns, logging
operations and the Mills.
In 1840, the
Royal Timber Corporation landed its first big client. North Pointe Shipbuilding set up shop right
next door in City Pointe.
Before North Pointe even opened its dry dock,
Royal Timber Corp. ordered three car ferries: and named them
In 1858
the Norfolk & Petersburg Railroad began operations. Since the N&PRR was a
standard gauge railroad, the only interchange between the two railroads was via
a transfer dock in
Also later in 1858
the railroad was extended again to the mine at Winterpock and the
James River Logging Railroad started
hauling coal. A coal cleaning station
was built in
1880 was a very
big year for the James River Logging Railroad.
On January 1 of that year the officials of Royal Timber Corporation
announced:
The James River Logging Railroad has been sold to a private group
of investors. Effective immediately all
rights and ownership of the railroad is transferred to
the investors and the line
becomes a common carrier named the James River
Railway and Riverboat Company.
That same year the line also started providing
scheduled passenger service for the cities along its route. A
local reporter in Petersburg found the idea of a logging railroad with a public
passenger service to be quite humorous and dubbed new line the “Royal Route”,
mostly because at the time the only passenger cars the railroad had were the
old private cars of the ex-owners that had the name Royal on
both sides in large letters. The new
owners liked the phrase. They sent the
reporter a check for fifty cents to buy the rights to the
title, he accepted. Later the
reporter found that the joke was on him when he received a bill for using the title
without permission. A new car shop was
added in Highland Colony so the railroad could build any new rolling stock it
need. Later the
car shop was sold to
a private company and the new owners built
cars for railroads all over the
From 1882 to 1887
three new narrow gauge railroads were founded in the area
and interchange between all of them was via car ferry.
In 1885 Virginia Steel
Company founded the company town of
In 1890 the Winterpock mine and branch line
were sold and became Winterpock Mining &
Rail Road (WM&RR). The
two railroads still maintained interchange traffic. The camp train track in now used as
locomotive servicing track for refueling and light repairs
for the WM&RR
In 1899 the railroad added
a telephone system for traffic control.
From
1900 until the present (1914) James River Railway and Riverboat
Company has continued to grow and is supplying coal, lumber and passenger
services to the many small towns down the