Today, CSX, Amtrak, and the Buckingham Branch Railroad still use portions of the old Virginia Central line for freight and passenger rail service.

The railroad, as specified by the original charter, was to connect with the RF&P near Taylorsville, at what would become Hanover Junction, and extend westward, passing the Louisa courthouse, to Orange County at the base of the Southwest Mountains.

The Virginia Board of Public Works owned two-fifths of the total $300,000 ($10,987,200 today) stock sold to finance the railroad's initial construction.

[4] The railroad had been planned by its original charter to build across the Blue Ridge Mountains to Harrisonburg, but in 1839, the Commonwealth requested a survey to be conducted to determine a feasible route to Staunton by way of Charlottesville.

The charter of that line protected it from construction of a parallel competitor, but an act by the Virginia General Assembly in 1848 authorized the extension of the Louisa Railroad easterly through Hanover and Henrico Counties to reach Richmond.

[9] The temporary tracks successfully joined the railroad and by eliminating the extra cost and effort of removing freight and passengers from trains for transport over the mountains, facilitated further growth and expansion westward.

The Blue Ridge tunnels and the Virginia Central were key tools in the fast mobilization of Confederate General Stonewall Jackson's famous "foot cavalry".

[31] As the war progressed, the railroad continually fell into a state of disrepair due to its constant use and the limited availability of supplies for upkeep.

[32] Union raids also destroyed many sections of the line, including the majority of the railroad's depots, with notable exceptions for those at Gordonsville and Charlottesville, two key points of trade.

[33] The defeat of Jubal Early's forces at Waynesboro led to the destruction of much of the bridges and line between Staunton and Keswick, and as Union armies converged on Richmond, further damage was done to the eastern section of the railroad.

[7] During the Peninsula Campaign of 1862, the South Anna River bridge was destroyed by Union cavalry and the Virginia Central's line between Hanover and Atlee was torn up.

[36] During Ulysses S. Grant's Overland Campaign of 1864, Phillip Sheridan was ordered, along with nearly 8,000 men, to proceed westward to join forces with David Hunter in Charlottesville, destroying as much of the Virginia Central as possible along the way.

[36] Reconstruction of the Virginia Central began soon after the Confederacy's collapse, and under the permission of General Edward Ord, repairs commenced on April 21, 1865.

Temporary overland stage and wagon routes were set up to bypass inoperable sections of the railroad as repairs were made and provided for the transportation of goods and passengers.

The Virginia Central's rolling stock had suffered throughout the Civil War, and the operable equipment had dwindled to an amount insufficient to provide for demand.

[40][41] Since before the Civil War, the section of the line between Jackson's River Station and Covington, a distance of about 10 miles (16 km), had remained incomplete.

After failing in the impoverished southern states and with British investors, Wickham found new capital and financing by recruiting Collis P. Huntington, one of the so-called "Big Four", a group of businessmen who had recently completed the western portion of the transcontinental railroad.

[46] Having long paid tolls for the use of the state-owned Blue Ridge Railroad, the C&O arranged to purchase the line from the Commonwealth of Virginia and assumed full ownership on April 1, 1870.

[50][51] Huntington was also aware of the potential to ship eastbound coal from West Virginia's untapped natural resources with the completion of the new railroad.

[7] After the Chesapeake and Ohio was consolidated with several other large railroads in the 1980s to form CSX Transportation, the line built by the Virginia Central from Staunton to Clifton Forge was considered for abandonment.

CSX, however, decided to keep the line in order to route empty coal trains westward, which, although intended for times of excess traffic, has become common practice.

[55][56] The line will also be used for the Amtrak Commonwealth Corridor connecting Newport News to Richmond, Charlottesville, Roanoke, and Lynchburg starting mid-late 2020s.