Railroad Heaven
Have you thought about how large the rail footprint in the Roanoke Valley has become? We are a train lover’s Bigfoot, a rail fan’s gold mine. Those of us who live here may forget sometimes how much we do have to offer.
You can tour the Museum of Transportation and its extensive collection of locomotives, rolling stock and other artifacts. Adding to its value is its location within the former Norfolk & Western Roanoke freight terminal.
You can travel the David and Susan Goode Railwalk, filled with graphics, data and hands-on exhibits. Strolling alongside the mainline of one of the four largest railroads in America, you can observe all kinds of Norfolk Southern trains in action. At times you will see not only NS locomotives but also those in the livery of CSX, Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Union Pacific, among others.
Nearby you can find much more of Norfolk Southern’s regional operations to take in. A dual track hump classification yard with both receiving and departure yards on each end lies just west of downtown at Shaffers Crossing. Fueling and sanding facilities and a locomotive and car maintenance center are located there as well. Downtown the current NS office building, modern and sophisticated-looking, towers above the streets.
Across the tracks from VMT and the Railwalk stands Hotel Roanoke, the grand old lady built by Norfolk Southern’s predecessor, the N&W, for its passengers. On one side of that classic structure is the restored, Loewy-designed Roanoke passenger station. Within its walls lies the O. Winston Link Museum, featuring stunning photos of N&W steam locomotives against the vanishing rural landscape of this region.
Traipse over to the other side of Hotel Roanoke and you can gaze at two earlier Norfolk and Western office buildings, built when Roanoke was not just a regional but a national railroad headquarters. One structure now houses the Roanoke Higher Education Center where more than a dozen universities and colleges offer classes. The other building contains upscale apartment living. You can go inside the Higher Ed. Center and see the exquisite wood paneling and metal work that made this such an elegant home for railroad management.
Just down the tracks from the office buildings, hotel and passenger station you will find the sprawling East End Shops, where many of the locomotives featured in Winston Link’s photos were built. On one end, Norfolk Southern continues to perform heavy maintenance on GE locomotives, fabricate slugs and do some wreck repair. On the other end, FreightCar America manufactures ore cars for BNSF, coal hoppers for NS, BNSF and GATX, and double-stack container cars for Saudi Arabia.
The recent tour of “lost railroads” in the valley offered a reminder that there is still more railroad gold to be mined in this area. In addition, two other planned projects will make Bigfoot’s print even more expansive: the restoration of the Virginian Railway passenger station and the building of an intermodal terminal in Elliston.
How many places in America can you go and see in such close proximity the headquarters of one of the most successful and innovative steam railroads in history, the shops where some of North America’s most impressive locomotives were built, the collected work of one of America’s great railroad photographers, some of the classic locomotives he shot, the operations of a modern class 1 railroad bisecting the historic sites, a manufacturing center for new freight cars and (hopefully soon) a cutting-edge intermodal railroad center?
You can do so much railfanning here, drinking in the past and present and even the future, taking in the trains and the people and facilities that make them go. It leaves me wondering whether we are adequately marketing ourselves to the world.
Is there any coordinated attempt to “sell” to train buffs all we offer in the valley? Are visitors to the area introduced to the full range of interconnected rail attractions we offer? Do we have railfan maps of the area to hand out to tourists?
Scranton, PA has Steam Town, a somewhat motley repository of locomotives gussied up by huge amounts of federal government money. Perhaps we should call ourselves Train Town or Railroad Roanoke, or something like that (I bet you can think of a better name than the ones I just suggested).
Surely we can do more to promote our railroad riches. Looking around convinces me that we are a wonderful secret that has been too well kept.
You can tour the Museum of Transportation and its extensive collection of locomotives, rolling stock and other artifacts. Adding to its value is its location within the former Norfolk & Western Roanoke freight terminal.
You can travel the David and Susan Goode Railwalk, filled with graphics, data and hands-on exhibits. Strolling alongside the mainline of one of the four largest railroads in America, you can observe all kinds of Norfolk Southern trains in action. At times you will see not only NS locomotives but also those in the livery of CSX, Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Union Pacific, among others.
Nearby you can find much more of Norfolk Southern’s regional operations to take in. A dual track hump classification yard with both receiving and departure yards on each end lies just west of downtown at Shaffers Crossing. Fueling and sanding facilities and a locomotive and car maintenance center are located there as well. Downtown the current NS office building, modern and sophisticated-looking, towers above the streets.
Across the tracks from VMT and the Railwalk stands Hotel Roanoke, the grand old lady built by Norfolk Southern’s predecessor, the N&W, for its passengers. On one side of that classic structure is the restored, Loewy-designed Roanoke passenger station. Within its walls lies the O. Winston Link Museum, featuring stunning photos of N&W steam locomotives against the vanishing rural landscape of this region.
Traipse over to the other side of Hotel Roanoke and you can gaze at two earlier Norfolk and Western office buildings, built when Roanoke was not just a regional but a national railroad headquarters. One structure now houses the Roanoke Higher Education Center where more than a dozen universities and colleges offer classes. The other building contains upscale apartment living. You can go inside the Higher Ed. Center and see the exquisite wood paneling and metal work that made this such an elegant home for railroad management.
Just down the tracks from the office buildings, hotel and passenger station you will find the sprawling East End Shops, where many of the locomotives featured in Winston Link’s photos were built. On one end, Norfolk Southern continues to perform heavy maintenance on GE locomotives, fabricate slugs and do some wreck repair. On the other end, FreightCar America manufactures ore cars for BNSF, coal hoppers for NS, BNSF and GATX, and double-stack container cars for Saudi Arabia.
The recent tour of “lost railroads” in the valley offered a reminder that there is still more railroad gold to be mined in this area. In addition, two other planned projects will make Bigfoot’s print even more expansive: the restoration of the Virginian Railway passenger station and the building of an intermodal terminal in Elliston.
How many places in America can you go and see in such close proximity the headquarters of one of the most successful and innovative steam railroads in history, the shops where some of North America’s most impressive locomotives were built, the collected work of one of America’s great railroad photographers, some of the classic locomotives he shot, the operations of a modern class 1 railroad bisecting the historic sites, a manufacturing center for new freight cars and (hopefully soon) a cutting-edge intermodal railroad center?
You can do so much railfanning here, drinking in the past and present and even the future, taking in the trains and the people and facilities that make them go. It leaves me wondering whether we are adequately marketing ourselves to the world.
Is there any coordinated attempt to “sell” to train buffs all we offer in the valley? Are visitors to the area introduced to the full range of interconnected rail attractions we offer? Do we have railfan maps of the area to hand out to tourists?
Scranton, PA has Steam Town, a somewhat motley repository of locomotives gussied up by huge amounts of federal government money. Perhaps we should call ourselves Train Town or Railroad Roanoke, or something like that (I bet you can think of a better name than the ones I just suggested).
Surely we can do more to promote our railroad riches. Looking around convinces me that we are a wonderful secret that has been too well kept.
Labels: David Goode, Freight Car America, Hotel Roanoke, Norfolk and Western, Norfolk Southern, O. Winston Link, Railwalk, Virginian Railway
posted by VMT-blogger @ 11:07 PM
2 Comments
2 Comments:
I think you're onto a great idea there. Last summer I finally visited the museum and Roanoke area and even though I was there for only a short time, it was obvious there was alot of see but I didn't know where most of it was. Obviously you couldn't walk on NS property but there has to be sights available from public land, but a 'railroad sights' map or tour or something similar of the surrounding area would be a great resource.
You might also consider, in addition to a railroad sights map, cell phone tours. Basically, the map provides visitors with a unique local or toll-free phone number they can call at the various landmarks noted on the map. The phone call will access a pre-recorded message talking about the site they're viewing with as little or as much detail as you want. Each site could have its own extension in the phone so you could even track which sites get the most traffic. Check out www.tourmate.com for more information (they're just one of a number of companies that do this sort of thing).
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