Lorton

Lorton may refer to:

Lorton, Virginia

Lorton is a census-designated place (CDP) in Fairfax County, Virginia, USA. The population was 18,610 as of the 2010 census.

History

Lorton is named for a village in the Lake District National Park, Cumbria in England, the hometown of Joseph Plaskett who settled in the area running a general store and opened the Lorton Valley, Virginia Post Office on November 11, 1875.

Before the identity of Lorton, the commercial center was Colchester and the spiritual and historical center of the community around which the leading citizens of the time revolved was Pohick Church.

From the early 20th century until November 2001, Lorton was the site of a District of Columbia correctional facility called the Lorton Reformatory which, among other things, detained approximately 168 women from the women's suffrage movement from the Washington, D.C. area from June to December 1917.

A Nike missile site was built at Lorton in 1955, and remained until 1973.

Lorton also is one of the two stations that serves Amtrak's Auto Train which carries passengers and their vehicles non-stop to Sanford, FL, about 30 minutes away from Orlando, FL. The Lorton and Occoquan Railroad once operated between the Lorton Reformatory and Occoquan, Virginia, with connection to the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad.

Lorton station

Lorton is a railroad terminal in Lorton, Virginia. It is the northern terminal for Amtrak's Auto Train which operates between this station and Sanford, FL. When Auto-Train was originally established in Lorton in 1971, the station house was still under construction. Until it was completed sometime between 1972 and 1975, it consisted of tents and pre-fabricated houses and trailers, and the parking lot was still paved only with gravel. When it was completed, it included a former caboose and boxcar previously owned by the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad that was converted into a gift shop. As with the rest of Auto Train, the station closed in 1981 and was reopened in 1983 when it was acquired by Amtrak.

The current station, which opened in 2000 as a replacement for the original Lorton Auto-Train station, features a large, modern waiting area designed in a modern Art Deco style, with high glass walls, a small gift shop, a snack bar, and a children's playground. There is one long low level platform (which is 1,480 feet (451 m) long) designed for Auto Train boarding and 6 vehicle ramps for boarding vehicles onto the 20+ autoracks that are on the Auto Train. This station is one mile south from the Virginia Railway Express Lorton station. No other Amtrak trains stop at either station.