Mixed Freight

Finally! I have been looking for you all everywhere. Where have you been?

Okay, I’m the one who has been missing. Other commitments have kept my schedule too clogged to blog. Thanks for your patience and continuing interest in VMT and transportation. I’m back now with a mixed freight of information (some of this and some of that).

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The summer edition of Revolutions, our museum newsletter, is done. It will be mailed out later this week. Those of you who receive digital copies should already have yours.

The new issue is different in some ways. For one thing, it contains six pages instead of four. For another, it gives special attention to VMT’s forty-fifth anniversary, through Bev Fitzpatrick’s View from the Cab and a photo spread of the early years at Wasena Park. This newsletter covers 1963-85, including the devastating ’85 flood that destroyed the original Roanoke Transportation Museum. The fall edition will focus on 1985 to the present.

The summer Revolutions also features several other topics. They include the recent Star City Motor Madness, the African American Heritage Day during Juneteenth festivities, the Lynchburg Rail Day/VMT bus trip, the new photo exhibit, the Rescue Challenge team’s hoisting of the RF&P box car, and recent news from our Board of Directors.

To receive either the paper or the e-mailed pdf version of the newsletter, call 342-5670 or e-mail info@vmt.org.

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Cocktails for a Cause comes to Trio next Wednesday, July 30. The VMT fundraiser works like this. Show up between 5-8 pm for cocktails, then move to the dining room for dinner, and Trio will donate a portion of your bar and meal receipts to the museum. You’ll find Trio at 315 Market St. SE. Train service not available.

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I wrote earlier about the multiple attractions that make this area a rail lover’s dream [Railroad Heaven, May 12]. Add another to the list.

Hotel Roanoke, originally built by the N&W for its riders, still maintains a vital connection to trains. Recently the hotel launched http://www.roanokerailcam.com/. The cam sits atop the classic building, looking out over the mainline tracks of Norfolk Southern. Now you can check out track happenings without leaving your recliner five miles away or 500 miles away (assuming you can reach a computer from your recliner).

Roanoke Rail Cam offers links to the Link and Transportation museums and the N&W Historical Society. Co-sponsor of the site is the Virginia Tech Foundation, headed by that famed train watcher himself, Ray Smoot. The Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center also offers a Train Lover’s Package with accommodations overlooking the railroad—you can be your own rail cam—plus breakfast and a commemorative mug and book.

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Did I just say “railroad lover’s dream”? Today I saw outside the museum an NS work train consisting of automated track laying equipment and those ribbons of continuous welded rail stretching seamlessly from car to car to car. The modern process of laying track still amazes me. And to see the equipment at point blank range—I drove up and down Shenandoah Avenue several times, drinking it all in—provides yet another argument why VMT is a special place. Every day the railroad past rubs shoulders with the railroad present.

Madness and Gladness

This year the Virginia Museum of Transportaton celebrates its 45th anniversary. That has sparked my curiosity about the earlier years of VMT history. Since I have only lived in Roanoke a dozen years, I knew little about the Wasena Park era, before the flood of ’85 wreaked its havoc.

Learning about those early days gives a clearer perspective on VMT’s present. For example, a current topic of debate—sparked by the Museum Management Consultants now-infamous report—focuses on whether we should be a transportation or a railroad-only institution. It’s a debate, however, you cannot realistiically have without under­standing how we got to where we are now.

History shows that the museum had a broad transportation focus from day one. The first two items on display (that’s right—we began as a two-piece band) were a N&W loco­motive and a fire truck. Soon the J611 loco was added, followed by more railroad equip­ment, trucks, buses, autos and planes.

One photo I found, obviously taken from the bridge above, shows the museum in the middle of a car show. Rows and rows of shiny automobiles are being prowled by spectators while proud and protective owners stand by their treasures. Southwest Virginia’s love of the car played an important role in museum life even then.

Fast forward to 2008 and you find VMT celebrating the grand opening of its new Advance Auto car gallery, followed two months later by the seventh annual incarnation of that steel and wheels invasion known as Star City Motor Madness. Held the last Friday and Saturday each June, the event turns Roanoke into hot wheels heaven.

“Madness” includes two events: a Friday night cruise on Williamson Road and a Satur­day show downtown. Last year approximately 15,000 cars, trucks and motorcycles gathered for the cruise. The combined events drew over 80,000 people. Two features I find especially appealing are the free admission for spectators and the money raised for VMT (which helped pay for the auto gallery, by the way).

Friday, June 27th (6pm to 10pm) classic and special interest auto­mo­biles, trucks and motorcycles will assemble for a cruise on Roanoke's historic Williamson Road, which still maintains that feel of Rt. 11 when it was this region’s version of Rt. 66. Two locations will be available for cruisers to park and let spectators get up close and personal, with food and entertainment within easy reach.

Saturday, June 28th, 2pm to 7pm, the car/truck/motorcycle show will occupy a large section of downtown Roanoke including Elmwood Park. The featured vehicle this year is the Corvette, and more than 100 of those beauties will shine. The National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky will have a display and General Motors will exhibit a prototype of the new Corvette ZR1. Music, special programming and kids’ activities will add to the fun. George Barris, “King of Kustomizers,” will be present.

More is happening than what I have mentioned here. To find it all out, go to http://www.starcitymotormadness.com/ and check out all the details.

It’s easy for train lovers to get tunnel vision over transportation issues and even feel some resentment at the automobile for stealing much of railroads’ glory in the last half of the 20th century. However, our love affair with cars has that same passion for travel, adventure and mechanical power that has stirred railroad enthusiasts for so long. They are both key parts of America’s story, and the current gas cost explosion should heighten our appreciation for each.

To have Motor Madness in Roanoke is exciting, another thrill in a region so rich in transportation heritage.

We're still here

July is a peculiar month for Independence Days. We employ the plural form here because in addition to the United States, Venezuela, Peru, Belgium, and Argentina all celebrate their Independence Days in July. Moreover, Canada became a nation in July, and Idaho and Wyoming became states. So July is a month full of anniversaries of new beginnings. Your Virginia Museum of Transportation has an odd sort of anniversary coming up, too.

It was a dark and stormy night in July, you see, when Mother Nature visited the First Bank of VMT, withdrew 10,000 square feet of roof and deposited 1,000 gallons of rain water. This shut down the museum for two weeks in the heart of our busy season. At nearly the same time, our former Executive Director resigned under controversy about misappropriation of funds. Many of our volunteers jumped ship, and we couldn't really blame them.

But, here comes July again and we're still open. On a personal note, this comes as a bit of a surprise to this blogger, and to many people, I have no doubt. In the past year, we lost our roof and our director, our Director of Education resigned, a man ran into our building with his truck, we had to call the bomb squad not once, but twice, saw our phone and internet lines cut for more than a week, had a small electrical fire in one of the walls, had a burglar break into the museum looking for cash, and discovered the ugly reality that was our exploding debt.

That's a lot of doom and gloom for one paragraph, so let's not belabor the point. In the same year, we've repaired that roof, hired a new Executive Director, paid off every penny of our debt, developed new and healthy relationships with other transportation museums and organizations, seen our volunteer corps grow in size from a handful to dozens, acquired a miniature locomotive for kids and adults to ride, and opened a brand new gallery showcasing automobiles from nearly every decade of the Twentieth Century.

The point is, we're still here. That makes it an anniversary worth celebrating.