Orange and Alexandria Railroad Culvert

Here follows an excerpt about the culvert from the "Atlas Obscura" website:

This little brick tunnel built by Confederate forces was used to conduct surprise attacks on the railroad.

Tucked away in the woods of this family-friendly park is a hidden passage that few people know of and fewer still manage to find. This Civil War-era culvert served as a hiding place for Confederates prior to raids on the Orange & Alexandria Railroad, which once passed directly over the culvert.

The railroad, which ran between Gordonsville in central Virginia and the port city of Alexandria, provided a strategic mechanism for the movement of troops and supplies for the Union army. Numerous accounts exist of Confederate forces attempting to disrupt the railroad line during the war.

General J.E.B. Stuart directed an attack on December 28, 1862, in which the Confederates damaged rails and cut telegraph lines at nearby Burke Station.

On another occasion, a group of 12 men under General Fitzhugh Lee were ordered by Stuart to burn the wooden trestle over Accotink Creek. It was later repaired.

The following year, a series of raids were conducted by Major John S. Mosby’s Rangers and Confederate civilians in which tracks were torn up with the hopes of derailing trains. After a derailment attempt failed on July 26, 1863, Union General George G. Meade enacted severe punishment on the civilians involved. To protect the railroad, several Union regiments camped out near the tracks.

Relic hunters have chiseled out one of two keystone bricks in the culvert marked with the letters “CSA” (Confederate States of America). Another brick inscribed with the year “1862” was removed from the culvert by park rangers and is on display at Lake Accotink Park Visitor’s Center.

An impressive railroad trestle stands in the main part of the park, but it’s not part of the original trestle. The park also features a large dam, a carousel, and a large picnic area, but this obscure tunnel is a hidden gem worth seeking out.

Know Before You Go:
The culvert is located a short walk from the Visitor's Center. If you park in the lot, walk back to the main road, turn right, and walk down the road looking over the edge into the woods until you see the top of the culvert. It's a pretty steep climb down a short but sometimes muddy embankment, so proceed with caution.

There is a less perilous path to the tunnel through the woods from the Cross County Connector Trail, it is pretty easy to find using a GPS tracker like Google Maps. Park at the Lake Accotink Parking lot and head north on the CCT, there will be a concrete marker as pictured.

If the Visitor's Center is open when you visit, you can see the brick mentioned above inscribed with the year "1862" that was rescued for posterity by park rangers, along with numerous other artifacts.


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Here follows an excerpt about the railroad from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

The Orange and Alexandria Railroad (O&A) was a railroad in Virginia, United States. Chartered in 1848, it eventually extended from Alexandria to Gordonsville, with another section from Charlottesville to Lynchburg. The road played a crucial role in the American Civil War, saw the first of many mergers in 1867, and eventually became an important part of the modern-day Norfolk Southern rail system.

Antebellum period:
The Virginia General Assembly issued a charter to the O&A on May 28, 1848, to run from Alexandria to Gordonsville. Construction began in 1850 and was completed in April 1854, when it connected with the Virginia Central Railroad in Orange County. Its longtime president was John S. Barbour Jr., a Virginia lawyer, part-time delegate and son of U.S. Representative John Strode Barbour.

In 1854, the General Assembly granted the O&A the right to build southward from Charlottesville to Lynchburg. O&A paid for trackage rights over Virginia Central tracks from Gordonsville to Charlottesville. In 1860, the southern extension was completed, including lucrative connections to the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad and the South Side Railroad. The O&A also connected with the Manassas Gap Railroad (chartered in 1850), at Tudor Hall (today named Manassas for this junction) which gave it access to the Shenandoah Valley.

The railroad boosted Virginia commerce. Farmers from Virginia's Piedmont region, and later, the Shenandoah Valley could more cheaply ship their products, produce, and goods to the markets of Washington, D.C., and Richmond, and to ocean-going vessels berthed at the Potomac River port of Alexandria. Alexandria, Richmond, and Lynchburg also became manufacturing centers. Passengers could travel from Washington to Lynchburg in eight hours instead of enduring a three-day stagecoach journey.

American Civil War:
The O&A was strategically important during the Civil War (1861–1865) and was repeatedly fought over and wrecked. In connection with the Virginia Central, it was the only rail link between the belligerents' capitals at Washington and Richmond. An 1861 Union Army attempt to gain control of Manassas Junction led to the First Battle of Bull Run, and the junction traded hands numerous times during the war. Confederate Maj. Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson attacked it in the Battle of Manassas Station Operations to draw the Union into the 1862 Second Battle of Bull Run. The 1863 Battle of Brandy Station and Second Battle of Rappahannock Station were also fought near the railroad line.

Reconstruction:
The railroad entered Reconstruction in dire shape, with much of its track ripped up and most of its rolling stock destroyed. However, Barbour rebuilt the railroad with the help of various politically connected financiers and his brother-in-law J.S.B. Thompson. In 1867, the O&A merged with the Manassas Gap Railroad (led by Edward Carrington Marshall) to become the Orange, Alexandria and Manassas Railroad.

After the Panic of 1873, the railroad was consolidated into the Virginia Midland Railway, which was controlled by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. It later became part of the Richmond and Danville Railroad, which went bankrupt in the Panic of 1893. The following year it was merged into the Southern Railway.

A cutoff between Orange and Charlottesville was incorporated in 1876 as the Charlottesville and Rapidan Railroad and opened in 1880. The Southern Railway acquired the line in 1914.

Modern Times:
Most of the O&A right-of-way is now the Washington District line of the Norfolk Southern Railway. The main exceptions are a short segment between Orange and Gordonsville, which is part of the similarly named Washington Subdivision of the Buckingham Branch Railroad; and the easternmost portion that traveled through Old Town Alexandria to its waterfront, which no longer exists aside from the Hoofs Run Bridge and the Wilkes Street Tunnel.

Parts of the former O&A right-of-way are also used by Amtrak and Virginia Railway Express (VRE).