With Edward Carrington Marshall as president and financial assistance from the Virginia Board of Public Works, construction was started westward in 1851 from a junction with the Orange and Alexandria Railroad (O&A) at Tudor Hall in Prince William County (a location the railroads called Manassas Junction). The tracks ran toward Front Royal and through Manassas Gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains to the Shenandoah Valley. It was completed to Strasburg in 1854. The railroad built south along the Shenandoah Valley, and reached Mount Jackson in Shenandoah County in 1859.