In 1870, the Southside Railroad was combined with the Norfolk and Petersburg Railroad and the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad to form Mahone's Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio Railroad (AM&O), which stretched 400 miles across the southern tier of Virginia from Norfolk on Hampton Roads to Bristol. After the Financial Panic of 1873, the AM&O fell into default on its debt, and was purchased in the early 1880s by new owners who renamed it the Norfolk and Western (N&W). N&W replaced the High Bridge's Fink truss spans in 1886 with minimal interruption of rail traffic, one span at a time, first suspending a new Pratt deck truss from traveling wooden falsework and then removing the old truss.