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Col. Cochran has posted a nice photo of the Belspring Grand Terminal Union Depot. So I will pass along a photo which is said to have been taken inside ye said depot, showing Agent/Operator Riley Edmond "Robin" Long.
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I became interested in Mr. Long decades ago, from a photo carried by the N&W Magazine May 1941, showing him seated at the Operator's Desk at "VK" Vicker. Mr. Tommy Duncan fed me some information on him, and I began an tree in Ancestry on his life.
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"Robin" (as he was called) Long was born in 1898 or 1899 at New River, Va, and raised on the family farm. He hired as a Telegraph Operator on the Radford Division April 16, 1916. In 1924, he married Edna Keister Long, also of New River. Robin was a musician and a poet, and was researching for a book when his life ended. He was a member of the Composers and Authors Association of America. His last residence was RFD 2, Radford (in Brooklyn, a little hamlet near Fairlawn.). His death certificate (11-4-1949) indicates that he died of a stroke, in Belspring, where he was apparently on duty, and was DOA at the Radford hospital. His death certificate shows his occupation as Station Agent, N&W Ry. His wife Edna, an elementary school teacher, survived him by 35 years and died in 1984. They are both buried in the cemetery of Rockford Methodist Church, Fairlawn, Pulaski County. They had no children.
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The Belspring depot wash torn down shortly before I hired in 1964, the apparent victim of the rash of train-offs and depot closings which followed the Recession of 1957. The earlier depot at Belspring had been located on the Old Line which went over Schooler Hill. I have never seen a photo of it and do not know its exact location, but it may have been located on Depot Road in Belspring. Its Telegraph Call was "PN." The new depot (pictured in Mr. Cochran's photo) was build when the Walton Cut Off was constructed, and its Telegraph Call was "KU."
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Photo attachments:
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1. Mr. Long instructing a student (?) in what has been identified as Belspring station. Name of the female student is unknown, but there is speculation she may have been his cousin.
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2. Portrait of Riley Long.
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3 and 4. Photos of Riley Long at Operator's desk at "VK" Vicker depot, from May 1941 N&W Magazine.
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-- abram burnett
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The Turnip Patch's BackChanel to Washington
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