The economic activity of any region depends greatly upon its transportation facilities. Without an efficient transportation system, goods--either raw materials or finished products or farm produce--cannot be moved from one point to another, workers cannot reach their jobs and consumers cannot reach their markets. Virginia is particularly fortunate in having a network of key railroads, excellent highways, deep harbors and modern airports. Trains, buses, trucks, passenger cars, boats, ocean vessels and aircraft--all play a basic role in the economic life of the state. Numerous railroads provide interstate as well as intrastate service: the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad connects Washington with Richmond; running over the R.F.&P. tracks and continuing in a north-south direction between Richmond and the North Carolina border are the Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard Air Line railroads; the Southern Railway runs diagonally from Washington across Virginia to the North Carolina border near Danville, with another route from West Point through Richmond and Danville; the Atlantic and Danville Railroad operates between Danville and Norfolk; the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad runs diagonally from Washington to Gordonsville where it connects either in a westerly direction with West Virginia near Covington or in an easterly direction with Newport News; the Norfolk and Western Railroad operates in an east-west direction from Norfolk through Lynchburg and Roanoke to West Virginia; and the Virginian Railway (now a branch of the N. & W.) connects Suffolk with Roanoke and West Virginia. The Pennsylvania Railroad has a branch line crossing the Eastern Shore from Maryland to Cape Charles while the Baltimore & Ohio has a branch through the Shenandoah Valley.