Norfolk and Western Railway

Ghost Corp Apparel — resurrecting iconic corporate ghosts.

The Norfolk & Western story began when the Atlantic, Mississippi & Ohio Railroad was sold at foreclosure on February 9, 1881 and renamed the Norfolk & Western Railroad. After another financial rough patch, the railroad emerged from reorganization in 1896 as the Norfolk & Western Railway. Roanoke, Virginia became its enduring headquarters town and railroad nerve center—because apparently a modest mountain city needed an industrial-scale reason to become the Magic City.

N&W made its name hauling Pocahontas coal east to Lambert’s Point in Norfolk, Virginia, while building a formidable reputation for heavy freight and mighty homegrown steam power. Its handsome Class A, Y, and J locomotives were not built for subtlety. They were built to move mountains, or at least very long trains full of the stuff dug out of them.

The system expanded dramatically, absorbing the Virginian Railway in 1959 and adding major Midwestern routes through a wave of leases, purchases, and mergers in 1964. On June 1, 1982, N&W and Southern Railway became subsidiaries of the new Norfolk Southern Corporation. N&W continued as a separate corporate entity until September 1, 1998, when it was merged into Norfolk Southern.

Our Norfolk and Western Railway collection celebrates Roanoke railroading, coal-country muscle, streamlined ambition, and the wonderfully excessive confidence of a railroad that made steam look like a permanent arrangement.