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New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad (NYP&N)
(For more Norfolk geography tidbits, click here.)
Alexander J. Cassatt organized the New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad (NYP&N, referred to as the "nip and n") in 1882 as a way to link the Northeast – and Virginia's Eastern Shore – with the Norfolk area and bypass the congested Washington DC route. On October 25, 1884, the main line was completed from Pocomoke City, Maryland, to Cape  Charles, Northhampton County, on the Eastern Shore. The town of Cape Charles had been created to be the NYP&N's southern terminus. Two weeks later, the first NYP&N passenger steamer left Cape Charles for Norfolk. And in 1885 there began an innovation that continues to this day: car floats, or barges, which allow freight cars to be shipped. Until 1929, freight was transported across the Chesapeake Bay to Norfolk via its Port Norfolk facilities (in Portsmouth, at the mouth of the Western Branch of the Elizabeth River), making the trip a full 36 miles. But in 1929, the NYP&N acquired tracking rights over the Norfolk Southern Railroad (see Chesapeake Transit Company……) from the St. Julian Avenue Yard, just east of the N&W tracks. Running along the Norfolk Southern's Cape Henry Avenue route to Cape Henry via Lynnhaven, the NYP&N branched off into the Little Creek inlet, where freight cars could be received direct from Cape Charles, just 26 miles away – reducing the distance by 12 miles. (The Little Creek facility is today surrounded by the Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base.) Barges (car floats) carry the rail cars (up to 25 cars on one barge) across the Chesapeake Bay and into Little Creek, where they are transferred to the railroad there. The float operation is one of only two such operations remaining on the east coast. According to Tony Reevy (National Railway Bulletin, Vol.67, No.4, 2002), the NYP&N was leased to the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1920.
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