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.

If Wishes Were (Iron) Horses

What is on your museum wish list? If funds and feasibility were not issues, how would you improve VMT?

You hear about various will be’s, could be’s and should be’s. A locomotive cab with interactive controls. Resurrection of the Virginia Scrap Iron ghost locos. A rail excursion—full size, not the converted Zoo Choo.

One of my dreams is to get the Y6 N&W steam locomotive moved back here from the Museum of Transportation in St. Louis. It would complete the “big three” of classic late steam types built in Roanoke. Yeah, I understand the chances of that steam dream coming to pass. Nevertheless ….

Would you like to see more representation of other railroads besides the N&W? Which roads and what exhibits?

Do you wish for more interactive exhibits for your children, grandchildren or the young ones you teach? What would you add to or change about the museum for them?

What would you like to see done differently with non-railroad transportation?

Of the railroad equipment that needs significant restoration, that looks like it belongs as much in a scrap yard as a rail yard, which pieces would you most like to see brought back to pristine condition? The Lake Pearl sleeper? The Pennsy GG-1 electric loco? The Jawn Henry? Just kidding about that last one.

The museum’s exhibits have been criticized as static and stale. How would you breathe life and freshness into them?

Obviously funds and feasibility are issues. However, knowing what you’re thinking helps us have a better museum. And some of those wish list items that seem far-fetched now may lie closer to our grasp than we think.

Today my daughter and I hiked along the Roanoke River from Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital to Winchester St. There at Wasena Park I told her stories of the flood of ’85, including the devastation of VMT. Who then could have seen beyond the mud and muck to envision where and what the museum is today.

Out of the current “storm” can also emerge a stronger, better transportation showplace. Share your dreams with us and then help us make some of those dreams a reality.

Ding, Ding, Ding Went the Bell

DC Transit #1470 has not moved under its own power in more than forty years. Given that it drew its power from overhead wires and a trolley pole, this isn't terribly surprising. In 1985, the Roanoke River overflowed its banks in what the area still infamously remembers as "The Flood of `85."* Directly alongside that river was the Virginia Museum of Transportation, located then in Roanoke's Wasena Park. #1470 was likely completely submerged. The water level rose as high as the rafters of the old museum building, and the trolley certainly wasn't that tall, so we're making the inference. We don't know for sure. In any event, the wheels were underwater for days. Now we skip ahead 22 years as we try to move DC Transit #1470 again.

The idea was simple -- we would pick up the street car, pull out the rails, and set it back down on the other set of rails underneath. If we had actually done this, we might have been alright. However, with the Zoo Choo desperate for space given its rather commodious turning radius, we opted to move #1470 a little more to the east to give the train some clearance. This was the rub.

We're estimating the weight of our street car to be in the neighborhood of 30,000 pounds. While that was within the lifting capacity of Allegheny Construction's big crane, it was not within its capacity due to the angle by which the crane was forced to operate (there are some messy physics involved that I won't bother going into). So the new plan was to lift the front end of the trolley with the crane, and pull it forward using a large tow truck (services generously donated by the Commonwealth Coach & Trolley Museum) until it had cleared its upper rails and the front wheels could be set down on the lower rails. This part went [relatively] smoothly. Now we get to the ugly part.

Next we would lift the rear end of the trolley, and drag the whole thing forward some more with the wrecker until those rear wheels cleared the upper rails to be set down level with the rest of the car. Remember how I told you that those wheels had been underwater for days? Well, it seems they never got cleaned up, and the wheels that carried that street car from Alexandria to Glen Echo every day for years refused to let it move the first foot forward today.

Enter: The Tow Truck

By this point, our one-hour moving project had already ballooned up to the three-hour mark. It was decided that a fair lead could be rigged (since the tow truck couldn't maneuver in the tight space to be directly in front of the trolley) to the side of the tow truck, beneath the crane, in front of the street car. The resultant system of pulleys more closely resembled a Rube Goldberg device than a wench.

Picture this: the tow truck sits to the right and about a car length forward of the trolley. The line comes from the tow truck, immediately out to the left (toward the street car), through a pulley fastened by a chain to the rails themselves, to the front of #1470. We created a Tetris piece out of steel cable. Now to engage the wench, pull the trolley forward, and set its rear-end down.

At this time, I'd like to let you know about a new exhibit at your Virginia Museum of Transportation. This museum is now home to the only combination narrow gauge-standard gauge rails on earth.

Rather than pull the trolley forward, the force of the wench and the resistance of the street car joined to bend the steel rails in toward each other, pigeon-toe style. Time for another new plan.

The distance the car needed to move forward was only about three feet. It had been pulled the rest of the way earlier with its front wheels in the air. The daredevils with Allegheny Construction lowered the rear end of the trolley onto blocks they'd put on the lower rails, forward of the upper rails. Then it was just a matter of shoving the upper rail segment out of the way, pulling the blocks out from under the street car, and lowering it finally down to the earth.

And so it was. After five hours, our street car had moved twenty feet forward, and two feet straight down. In the process, we rendered useless a pair of steel rails, dug massive holes in our playground from the tow truck's path, and cost Allegheny Construction about twenty man-hours in donated time and services.

Why settle for the easy way, when the very hard, destructive way will do?

*Every small community refers to natural disasters in this way. It's quaint, which is another way of saying that no one understands it, but it seems charming, anyway.

To attempt to describe the railroad's presence and influence in the city of Roanoke over the years is to attempt to describe a rainbow to a blind man. Roanoke still bears the marks of its illustrious rail heritage, much as an older man may still show some pocks from his pimpled youth.

A quick look around town will confirm this. Consider The Great 611 Steak Company*, a local restaurant adorned in the colors and images of Norfolk & Western's own #611. The Norfolk Southern shops still dominate the city skyline on the other side of I-581. There are dozens of bridges and overpasses for trains. Shaffer's Crossing is the largest rail yard in Virginia west of Richmond. Some of the most popular events in the town's history have been when locomotives came into or left this museum, much like the fanfare that accompanied their births at the shops down the street.

One other rail tribute lives in Roanoke. Actually, it lives above Roanoke at the Mill Mountain Zoo. The Zoo Choo, a miniature train, has operated at the zoo for more than half a century, happily transporting visitors around the zoo whilst bombarding them with views of the valley that are truly unmatched. The Zoo Choo is every bit an institution in Roanoke.

Last night, it was announced that the Zoo Choo is moving.

The train is owned by the Roanoke Jaycees, but has chugged along atop Mill Mountain for more than 50 years. The zoo asked the Jaycees to remove the train as they wished to purchase a train for themselves, no longer wishing to split the revenue from the Jaycees' engine. Looking for a new home, the Jaycees contacted us, and we said yes.

To place the train here requires a healthy bit of construction that we cannot guarantee to be completed for next year (the train will move out of the zoo in November of 2007). A track pattern resembling a dog bone will be placed outside in our rail yard. At several points, it will cross the tracks on which its larger cousins rest. These sections will be made removable so that we can move the pieces in our collection as needed. This means elevating the entirety of the mini-train's track and filling with ballast and wood.

One consideration is to relocate and repaint the old Ellitt station which sits outside the museum for use as the ticket booth. Another would be to purchase tickets inside at the front desk or gift shop, though the station idea is obviously preferable.

The Jaycees would operate the train, hiring all the engineers and maintenance workers. The terms of the financial agreement would be as they were with the Mill Mountain Zoo -- VMT and the Jaycees will split the net return.

This is a fitting home for the Zoo Choo. When the museum was located in Wasena Park, it operated a miniature train of its own. That train, however, was actually a tractor with a fiberglass shell over it, far from the sophistication of this entity. Moreover, the zoo will not be without a train forever. The zoo already has plans to purchase a train that it would own and operate itself, so the Zoo Choo will yet live.

One of the single most common requests at VMT from visitors is for a train ride. Since Norfolk Southern's main east-west line sits right behind the museum, this is nearly impossible. However, the Zoo Choo is an excellent compromise and will provide a fine base of operations for the next fifty years of its life, riding the rails in the shadows of the giants that inspired it.

*VMT collaborates with The Great 611 Steak Company. A receipt from the museum is good for 10% off your meal at the restaurant, and your meal receipt is good for 10% off admission to the museum.