East End Tower, Roanoke, in 1895

[NW Mailing List]

Harry,  Thank you for the history. Interesting.   John Garner



 

Who knew you could take a westbound movement directly north onto the Shenandoah Valley

line (or southbound directly to eastbound) without going into Roanoke Yard? 

 

The late Hank Kinzell for one.  He was transferred from the Western Region in

the early 70s to become Superintendent - Roanoke Terminal.  He was also a

member of N&WHS. The east bridge over Orange Avenue (U.S. 460) had been removed 

and there was no longer a route to directly transfer between the Shenandoah Division

and the Norfolk Division at 9th Street.

 

At this time, there were unit coal trains that originated on the C&O south of

Huntington, WV, moved to Glasgow, VA and handed off to the N&W to terminate

at Hyco on the Durham District.  Without the connection, the Shenandoah Division

crew brought the unit train to Shaffers Crossing where motive power and cabooses

were swapped from one end to the other.  Then there was a brake test.  Leaving

Shaffers Crossing, the unit train passed the abandoned connection, diverted to

the Tinker Creek connection and moved on the former Virginian to the Durham

District connection at Vabrook.

 

Kinzell calculated the savings to be realized if the connection was restored.  Every

September, J.P. Fishwick and others held a capital budget meeting to determine

how money would be spent the following year for capital improvements.  Department

heads were invited to testify about the benefits and savings to be realized from

the improvements. Replacing a Shenandoah-Norfolk Division connection would

reduce mileage, avoid swapping power and cabooses, reduce terminal overtime

(possibly), avoid an air test,  reduce per diem paid for C&O hoppers and so on.

Guess what.  Kinzell didn't get connection money.           Harry Bundy

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist6.pair.net/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/attachments/20190308/c8887730/attachment.html>