The Heath Gravity Railroad

The Heath Gravity Railroad ran through this area from 1838 until approximately 1850, transporting coal mined from the Midlothian area for use in Richmond iron foundries and in Richmond homes for heat. This carefully engineered six-mile railroad moved coal by horse and by gravity from a ridge line in the present-day Sycamore Square area through Salisbury to a point on the James River west of Bellona Arsenal. There the coal was loaded onto bateaux, which carried it across the river and then east on the Kanawha Canal. Within Salisbury, the railroad’s rails and ties were later removed and used in construction of the nearby former Richmond and Danville Railroad, now Norfolk Southern, and in repairs to that line and others during the Civil War. The coal mines of the Midlothian area represent the earliest systematic excavation of fossil fuel in the United States.

Virginia · United States