In Ashland, Virginia, Route 76 travels down Railroad Avenue, which runs north to south, for about one mile. This name is appropriate, for a set of railroad tracks runs down the middle of the road. Northbound vehicle traffic is on one side of the tracks, and southbound traffic is on the other side. An Amtrak station is located between these two roads in downtown Ashland. At this station, passengers may board trains up to four times a day, with connections to Richmond and Williamsburg to the south and Washington, Baltimore, and other cities to the north. Railways are a familiar sight for cyclists on Route 76, because the expansion of the railroad network for the last two centuries has been an important element of the history of Virginia and the United States more generally. Ashland, where Route 76 literally runs on either side of a train track, thus serves as an illustrative example of how the growth, consolidation, decline, and now renewal of railway transportation have shaped the long term trajectory of communities, the state, and the nation.
Welcome to episode 6 of the Virginia Bikecentennial Route 76 Podcast. This episode is connected to the town of Ashland, located just under 100 miles from Yorktown, the starting point for the westbound route, and just about 450 miles from the Kentucky border, where eastbound riders enter Virginia. This podcast is a production of Virginia Tech, a public land grant university located in Blacksburg, just three miles from Route 76 in southwest Virginia. I am your host, Tom Ewing, and this podcast is produced by the digital humanities program in Virginia Tech University Libraries, under the direction of media manager Joe Forte.
Railroad transportation began in early nineteenth century America, peaked in the early twentieth century, and then gradually declined in the decades that followed. The 1970s, when Bikecentennial riders crossed the country, marked the lowest point in the history of passenger rail in the United States. The last twenty years, by contrast, have seen a partial return to the rails, as travelers seek alternatives to crowded highways and even more crowded airports. At this time, passenger trains provide service to five locations along or near Route 76 in Virginia: Williamsburg, Richmond, Ashland, Charlottesville, and Roanoke. Amtrak makes it possible for cyclists to bring bicycles on trains, thus providing a way to reach Route 76 using public transportation.
The first railroads in Virginia were established in the 1830s, with lines connecting major cities. In the decades that followed, railroad expansion was driven primarily by growing demand for freight transportation. Railroads brought lumber down from the hills of Virginia for processing at mills and then delivery to factories. Coal trains transported materials mined from across the Appalachian region. Trains also carried agricultural produce from depots in farming regions to processing plants and to meet the demands of cities. Passenger rail followed the lines established by freight companies. Major cities were first to be connected, with stops along the way serving rural populations.
A map of Virginia railways in 1910 includes many locations familiar to a contemporary traveler, including major cities (Richmond, Alexandria, Roanoke, Norfolk, and Lynchburg). Yet this map also includes locations that are less familiar because they were bypassed by the interstate highway system. In southwestern Virginia, Honaker and Sugar Grove were train stations in the early twentieth century which are located along Route 76. As a result, these towns might be more familiar to transamerican cyclists (and local residents, of course) than they are to people in Southwest Virginia or those driving through on the interstate highways.
At this time, most newspapers provided daily railway timetables that provide a snapshot of all the locations accessible by train from local stations. The Richmond Times Dispatch of February 19, 1911, just to take one day as an example, listed trains from eight different companies. One company offered more than ten departures each day for Washington and beyond. Another company scheduled sleepers and coaches headed south to Atlanta, Birmingham, Savannah, Jacksonville, and Florida. Travelers within Virginia could board many trains each day to travel across the state, with departures for Norfolk, Charlottesville, Lynchburg, Lexington, and points further west.
The history of railroads in Virginia, and more generally across the US South, is also a history of racial exclusion resulting from the legal system of enforced segregation. The most famous event in this history occurred in 1896, when the Supreme Court upheld segregation on public transportation in southern states. This case began when an African American man, Homer Plessy, boarded a railroad car in New Orleans designated as “white only.” The Supreme Court ruled seven to one that laws requiring separate but equal public facilities did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution. Following this decision, legislatures across the south took steps to create laws that codified and enforced what had been standard practice.
In 1900, the Virginia legislature passed a law codifying the existing practices of racial segregation on railroads. When laws requiring separate cars were first proposed, as early as 1896, the Richmond Planet, the leading Black newspaper in the state, objected to the “Separate Car Bill,” with the statement that this law intended to “humiliate” African Americans. The editorial approved of the idea of different cars for “well-behaved people” and for “those not who will not behave themselves,” but adamantly proclaimed that “self-respecting” African Americans were “eternally at war against any legislation which carries with it the idea” that all African American “people are bad and all white people are good.” At the time, the proposed legislation did not receive enough support to be considered and so it simply went away.
Four years later, however, the Epps bill, named for a white Richmond law-maker, received considerably more support among law-makers and especially in white newspapers. The Richmond Dispatch declared that “the popular judgment is overwhelmingly in favor” of the separate car bill. This editorial offered the most condescending advice to African Americans in the statement that both whites and African Americans prefer “that the two races should keep separate and apart.”
This theme that segregation was best for both races appeared in other editorials. The Newport News, for example, declared without evidence that “the free intermingling” of whites and African Americans “on terms of equality, when they are forced into close contact, is productive of friction and trouble.” The News and Advance in Lynchburg welcomed the law with the same claim that separate cars would reduce “friction” between the races.
The Black press was firmly opposed to the separate cars legislation. The Richmond Planet declared that separate cars were antithetical to the promises of justice and equality in the US constitution as well as the 15th Amendment, followed by this emphatic statement: “A law that righteousness, justice, liberty, and equality does not demand. The promotion of the welfare of Virginia and her domestic tranquility does not demand, but is simply an act of the majority, the strong, oppressing the weak, the minority. An act of degradation by ‘lords of creation’ upon a class of citizens who are powerless to resist, having no representation in the General Assembly, although taxed, notwithstanding Virginia in signing the Declaration of American Independence declared that representation and taxation should go together, yea, be inseparably connected.”
Once the legislation was proposed in early 1900, no meaningful debate occurred. The bill was passed unanimously by the House of Delegates and the Senate. The law went into effect on July 1, 1900. Under the terms of this law, every passenger train that boarded passengers in Virginia had to include separate facilities for white and African American riders. Interstate trains, however, which originated outside Virginia or carried passengers through the State without stopping, were exempt, as these routes were governed by federal law which did not require segregation even if states along the route had such laws.
While the outcome of the legislative process was never in question, the discussion in newspapers about the proposed law provides remarkable insights into attitudes about race and public spaces. Segregation was actively created by the white establishment, including legislators, newspaper editors, and community members. The Black press, by contrast, strongly and vocally opposed the law, which confirms that even in this time of extreme racism, dissenting voices were part of public discourse about race in public spaces. As numerous editorials in white newspapers declared, white opinion was essential to the implementation of racist policies in Jim Crow Virginia. The Richmond Dispatch was very open in declaring that the legislature did its job by executing the will of the white people of the State.
The Ashland train station is a testament to this era of segregation. The room once designated as the separate station for African Americans is now part of a museum, with photographs and artifacts designating this important historical stage.
Challenges to racial segregation in the transportation system were critical steps in the early history of the Civil Rights movement. The 1954 Supreme Court decision on Brown vs Board of Education repudiated the underlying principle of separate but equal in all public facilities, including trains. The 1964 Civil Rights Act enabled the federal government to take steps to ensure compliance with integration in all forms of public transportation. Yet this important transition in the history of American railroads occurred at the same time that the number of people riding trains entered a long period of decline.
The peak of passenger rail in the United States took place in the 1920s. In the decade after the first world war, railroads provided the most extensive, convenient, and pleasant way to travel. At this moment, automobiles were only just becoming popular, and long distance travel on mostly dirt roads was still impractical and unpleasant.
From the 1920s to the 1970s, however, the number of passengers annually on American railroads fell by almost 75%, to less than 300 million in 1970. At the time of the Bikecentennial, in other words, only one-quarter as many Americans traveled by train as had been the case fifty years earlier. The decline of passenger rail affected American society more broadly in ways that were evident in Ashland. The shift of passenger and freight vehicles from the rails to highways redirected traffic to other parts of downtown and away from businesses located near the train station. As commuters abandoned trains and trolleys to drive into cities, housing shifted to the suburbs, further drawing populations away from small towns. Finally, as retail grew in shopping malls near highways, stores in small towns were unable to compete and many closed.
Cyclists along route 76 in Virginia still encounter trains in numerous locations. In contrast to a century ago, relatively few cities and towns along the route still offer passenger service, yet cyclists may see these trains in downtown stations as well as between stations. Freight trains are far more common than passenger trains along this route, and thus the trains most likely that cyclists will encounter are carrying coal, gas, or other industrial products, not people (other than the engineers driving the train).
In many sections, particularly in southwest Virginia, Route 76 runs parallel to existing tracks, thus providing numerous opportunities for cyclists to encounter freight trains. In many locations, at-grade crossings, with flashing lights and descending barriers, will warn cyclists of approaching trains. Cyclists may also ride over bridges that cross railroad tracks or trains may cross over the road on a dedicated railway bridge. On Route 76 just north of Blacksburg, the road passes under a train bridge in a narrow section that allows for one way traffic only. Cyclists must look through the narrow opening to determine if any cars are approaching — and anticipate who will yield the right of way.
Encountering a train while riding a bicycle is a visceral experience, as the noise of the locomotive, the rhythmic turning of the wheels, the screech of the brakes, and the vibration of the tracks affect all the senses. If the train is approaching an at-grade intersection, the blast of the warning horn can be heard for miles in any direction. If the train is nearby, the horn is so loud that a cyclist feels as well as hears the sound.
In addition to the physical experience, however, these encounters provide cyclists with a profound sense of being spatially and temporally connected. Every track on a railroad is connected to every other track along the line in a continuous network of rails. Even where lines diverge, the tracks must be continuous, so cyclists will often observe sections where lines split or rejoin, but the connection between tracks is maintained.
Railroads also illustrate remarkable continuity across historical periods. The routes followed by most trains today are lines that were laid down as much as two hundred years ago. The stations are often in the same location, and possibly even the same buildings, as one hundred or more years ago. Thinking about these connections is also a reminder of critical stages in this history. Racial segregation in southern states, including Virginia, is an important part of the historical transition from slavery to emancipation to Jim Crow to the civil rights movement to desegregation. The Ashland train station, with the physical evidence of two separate waiting rooms, is a visible reminder of how trains connect the past to the present.
You have been listening to episode 6 of the Virginia Bikecentennial Route 76 Podcast. This episode is connected to the town of Ashland, located just under 100 miles from Yorktown, the starting point for the westbound route, and just about 450 miles from the Kentucky border, where eastbound riders enter Virginia. This podcast is a production of Virginia Tech, a public land grant university located in Blacksburg, just three miles from Route 76 in southwest Virginia. I am your host, Tom Ewing, and this podcast is produced by the digital humanities program in Virginia Tech University Libraries, under the direction of media manager Joe Forte. To learn more about the stories in this episode, visit our website or follow us on social media, all accessible from the homepage for this podcast.
