Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 16 · column 4 of 7 · from the scan, no model involved
senger trains had to back into the station from the mainline.
The East-West trains from Front Royal traveled the historic route of the Manassas Gap Railroad MGRR). Chartered in 1850, the line was created to link Manassas Junction (then known as Tudor Hall) with the Shenandoah Valley. By 1854, the MGRR had reached Strasburg, by 1859 Mount Jackson. In possibly the first movement of troops via train, Stonewall Jackson’s soldiers were carried from the Valley to the 1st Battle of Manassas over this line in the first year of the Civil War. The embankment of an unfinished branch line near Groveton served as Jackson’s defensive position at the 2nd Battle of Manassas. Later in the War, trains would transport wounded soldiers West and South over the MGRR mainline to the major Confederate hospital at Mount Jackson.
In 1865, nothing but roadbed remained from Manassas to Strasburg for this heavily contested section of track. Following the War, the destroyed portion was rebuilt and the line was extended from Mount Jackson to Harrisonburg. By 1884, business for the railroad, now known as the Virginia Midland Railway, was strong enough that special Christmas holiday excursion trains offered roundtrip tickets from Strasburg to Washington, D.C. for $1.75 (think of
94.6%