In 1881, the B&O's plan to reach all the way south to Salem effectively became moot when the expanding Richmond and Danville Railroad took over the Virginia Midland Railroad, the successor to the O&A and Manassas Gap Railroads, which the B&O had acquired during the 1860s. Also in that year, the AM&O, in receivership since the mid-1870s, was acquired by Philadelphia-based interests competing with the B&O who also controlled the Shenandoah Valley Railroad, a parallel line also building up the Shenandoah Valley from the Potomac River which thereby achieved the connection with the original V&T near Salem the B&O had sought. At the junction, the new Norfolk and Western Railway turned a tiny flag stop named Big Lick into the new railroad city of Roanoke, Virginia, a few miles northeast of Salem.