In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s the Virginia Electric Power
Company (VEPCO, now Virginia Power) began construction of a nuclear
power plant near the North Anna River. In 1971, the river was dammed,
forming a 9,600-acre lake to provide cooling water for the plant. In
addition, the C&O constructed a spur to the construction site to
handle large materials (e.g., steel rebar, steam generators,
transformers, motor-operated valves, pump motors, piping, cable, etc)
that could not be trucked in. The spur split from the main between
Frederick Hall and Pendleton. It is now largely dormant, though
it is still occassionally used to deliver large items to the site that
cannot be handled by trucks.
During construction, cars were set off on the spur by a local or by trains 794 or 795.
A former Washington Terminal switcher was used to shuttle loads to the construction site
and return empties in the evening. Billing was handled by the agent in Mineral.
Photo
This is the North Anna Power Plant taken from Lake Anna. This photo was obtained from
Wikimedia Commons
Map
This map was prepared from U.S.G.S. topological maps, C&O track charts dated 1963, C&O Side
Track Records dated 1937, a copy of the Side Track Records updated through the 1990’s, and
C&O Valuation maps, also updated through the 1990’s.
Please note that, due to a huge volume of spam coming in on my email account, I’ve had to change my email address.
The new address is lzdaily@nospam.piedmontsub.com (but remove the nospam and the dot before piedmontsub.com).
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