<div dir="ltr">Hey Bruce, I meant to reply to you yesterday, but we didn't have any electricity in the late afternoon/ evening! <div><br><div> I don't think I have ever seen that photo of the Pepper station. I think there is a nice map drawing in the archives of the track configuration, road crossing with station that I had flattened years ago over at GOB east.<div>I seem to remember staring at it one saturday. </div><div>This pic is of the station cool. That is a decent size station. </div><div>I'd guess the tower at Cowen was probably opened when the Radford Army Ammunition plant was being built 1940-41 ? </div><div>I have a pic of the switch and signal of the entrance to RAAP on the Montgomery county side, below Pepper at the bridge. It's somewhere here.</div><div><br></div><div>best regards</div><div> rob ervine</div><div>Fairlawn VA</div><div><img src="cid:ii_mcf5654t1" alt="image.png" width="21" height="16"><br></div><div><br></div></div></div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Jun 26, 2025 at 12:42 PM NW Mailing List <<a href="mailto:nw-mailing-list@nwhs.org">nw-mailing-list@nwhs.org</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:small"><span style="font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif">On Thu, Jun 26, 2025 at 7:10 AM Rob wrote:</span></div></div><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">Continuing with the Pepper area theme, there isn't a lot of room there.<div>Westbound Ringling brothers circus back in the day. (04/15/2015) Seems like yesterday.</div><div> I didn't even know the train wasn't even NS powered that day. </div></div></blockquote><div> </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:small">Nice photos, thanks for sharing. Pepper is an interesting location in that there isn't much there. The location was long important as the site of a ferry across the New River, providing a connection from Montgomery County and points east with Pulaski County on a track north of the Wilderness Road. The river was bridged in 1939 but the road to the east to Blacksburg was unimproved.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:small">The rail line was the low-grade line built to move traffic off the original line over Schooler Hill into Radford. What's interesting is the large station that was built, pretty much in the middle of nowhere, at Pepper -- two stories with a residence for the agent. What was the need for this station, other than as an enlarged "tower" to handle traffic to and from the single-track Pepper/Cowan tunnel. When did the tower at Walton come on line? What about Cowan?</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:small">While looking for info about the Pepper's Ferry bridge, I did find this tidbit that leads to the question -- where does one store a bridge?</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-size:small"><i style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Southwest Times</i><font face="verdana, sans-serif">, Volume 25, Number 222, 9 November 1930, pg. 5</font><br><br><font face="georgia, serif"><b>Permit Action Delayed Week</b><br><br>Decision by the Federal power commission on the application of a permit for the Appalachian Power company dam, which had been announced as probably to be made Thursday, will not be made for a week or ten days, it was stated at the office of the commission in Washington yesterday.<br><br>Reports current in this section that the Federal power commission had made its decision in the dam case and would announce this decision after the election were denied by a dispatch from Washington. The commission stated to the correspondent at Washington that the decision would not finally be made for a week or ten days. <br><br>Vice President Claytor of the Appalachian Electric Power company, here in connection with the land condemnation cases, said that he expected actual work to be started within four or five weeks. The Appalachian company is reported to have bought from the Norfolk & Western the old railroad bridge that has been in storage since a new structure replaced it at its former location over New river leading to the Pepper tunnel. This bridge is expected to be used at the dam site, where a track will be laid from the quarry line to carry supplies and materials.</font></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:small"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:small">Bruce in Blacksburg</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif;font-size:small"><img src="cid:ii_mcditxta0" alt="NW02065.jpg" width="562" height="353"><br></div></div></div>
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