Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1856-09-06
EDITORIAL CORRESPONDENTS

A Trip to tie Piedmont region of VIrginia-
The Orange r alexandria Railroad-THs
Blue Ridge C"ipeYpsr Court Houss-IHs
Country around 1T, DC
CULrErPEK G. H., Va, Sept 5, 1856.
left Alexandria at half-past seven this
morning, and reached this point, per Orange
and Alexandria railroad-62 miles distant
in two hours and half. We were blest with
remarkable absence of the usual annoyances
of American travel by rail-cinder-dust and
car-pedlars. l cannot account for the absence
OF the dust On this particular line, but certain
1t is, there is invariably less of it between
Alexandria and Richmond than elsewhere.
The car-pedlsrs, presume, are kept of the
line by regulation of the company, who thus
save their patrons from what has come to be
emphatically nuisance further North, where
hOmely and brazen-faced cid maids, in bloom
er costume, thrust their wares, and gable
frequently, abolition tracts ard anti-s slavery
slaDg-whang, in the faces and ears of all,
whether In the humOr to be pleased with such
interruptions Of the semi-stupor into which
the gentle jJltiDg Of railway travelling so fire.
quentIy rocks or shakes one, or not.
The ORANGE AND ALEXANDRIA RAILROAD.
This read (tLe Orange and Alexandria, is
cs?itally managed; (balkg, Earrings or noise on
the part Of the eOmpany's machinery, agents or
servants being things almost unknown,) while
its running time is up to the mark Of about
thirty miles FER hour. As It is a ccmpar atively
new road, but two passenger trains per day
each way are run over it, which precIudes tie
possibility Of the occurrence upon any portion
of its length Of one of those awful catastrophes
from collision, by which of late the public
Bel sibility has been shocked, perhaps, once a
week. They result, in too many instances, from
efforts 10 trapsact more business than the ia
cilities Cf the roads warrant most of the rail-
roads in this country being single track ones
and such affairs never happening where from
end TO end the lines are laid with a double set
of rails. Lut for the fact that the loss of life
by railway accident is something almost un-
known on lines laid down south of the POto-
mac it would be fair to presume that the SO
rapid increase Of the business of the Orange
and Alexandria railroad will, ere long, place
1t in tie catalogue Of dangerous similar insti.
buttons.
Its passenger business has at least doubled in
twelve-month, while the hundreds, if no,
tbOusands, q tons Of guano, plaster, salt, &c.
going up, and its thousands of bushels of wheat
and ecrn going down aaiIy-more than ap-
peared to be traversing it ~ this season of the
lac tall 10 - &c e.
importance to those vino reflect On What thew
see around them.
The company are pushing the construction
of its extension to Lynchburg with great en-
ergy and success. They will not long hence
open il formally 20 that point, where it will
intersect the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad,
which will be finished, perhaps, clear through
from Memphis by that time. La three or four
years hence there will probably be centinu-
Gus line Of rail-irsvcling by this route to Mo
ole, New Orleans, Louisville, st. Louis, Gin.
cinuad, and Chicago. Who can foretelI its
coming business importance?
l remark above that its passenger business
has at least doubled in a twelve month The
severity Of the past winter threw over IL the
great rush Of the through southern travel
which, from its road superior aceommoda tions
and the lovely region Of country through which
1t ia constructed, seems determined TO stick to
IL, now that tie absolute necessity compelling
through travellers TO patronize it no longer ex
ists. The public have discovered, too, that it
is by far the shortest, easiest, cheapest, and
most agreeable line Ct travel to and from al,
the celebrated Virginia watering places, sought
In the summer months by untold thousands on
thousands OF searchers after relaxation, and
heslth. The rumber of passenger on one
train of this road, in the course of the spm.
mer, has been as high as three hundred. most
of them being springs-gOing wayfarers. A
year since, if one should have predicted spy