The rail line later called the Catawba Branch of the Norfolk and Western Railway began on March 25, 1902, when the Catawba Valley Railway and Mining Company was approved by the General Assembly of Virginia. Typical of many small, single-purpose railroads built between 1880 and 1910, it was constructed to haul a fine grade of silica sand for glass container manufacturing from the base of Catawba Mountain to a plant just east of Salem’s Norfolk and Western Passenger station. Construction began in Salem in 1906 at the juncture with the Norfolk and Western’s main line and was completed in October 1907. The 9.39-mile road operated independently until it was conveyed to the Norfolk and Western by deed on July 30, 1909. After the Commonwealth of Virginia purchased the Roanoke Red Sulphur Springs property in Catawba in November 1908 to establish a sanatorium for tuberculosis patients, the Catawba Sanatorium opened on July 30, 1909, and the railroad became a crucial link for patients and supplies because local roads were in poor condition. Its train, with two passenger cars, made two round trips per day. As local road improvements made jitney transport faster and more economical, passenger service ended in 1936. By 1939 the sanatorium’s overall construction was complete and supplies moving by rail decreased. In 1943, the approximately four-mile line from Hanging Rock to the end of track in Catawba was abandoned, with the critical need for steel for war materials also contributing to the railroad’s closing. On July 28, 1943, the last day of service, a work train finished removing the remaining steel track. Because the sanatorium still received coal by rail for its power plant, a coal unloading facility was built at Hanging Rock on sanatorium property. With its small wooden station, Hanging Rock became the end of the line until the mid-1990’s. The station was removed in the early 1970s, and in late 1993 Norfolk Southern officially abandoned nearly a mile of track to the end of the branch. That portion of track was removed in the summer of 1995, clearing the way for development of the Hanging Rock walking and biking trail.