Collections and Connections

This and that:

The Messimer Collection has had its grand opening. Housed in the front of the museum, near the gift shop, the exhibit displays an abundance of Greyhound bus memorabilia covering three-quarters of a century. The exhibit also includes Trailways items, a full size front of an Abbott Trailways bus and photos of local transit buses provided by the Commonwealth Coach and Trolley Museum of Roanoke.

Located in the same area is a new display celebrating Roanoke’s “other” railroad, the Virginian Railway. Though much smaller than the Norfolk and Western, the Virginian competed neck-and-neck with the N&W hauling West Virginia coal to Norfolk. The two railroads merged in 1959. This area is not finished. We plan to do a formal opening once the storyboards are completed and mounted.

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VMT is in negotiations with two other Virginia museums regarding the N&W locomotives at the Virginia Scrap Iron and Metal Company property. Hopefully the remaining vintage steam locos can be salvaged through a cooperative effort. We’ll keep you posted.

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This week the museum unveils the Jim Hyams serigraph collection. Serigraphs are prints made using the silkscreen process. The result is highly detailed paints of an almost photographic quality. Afterward the screens are destroyed, limiting the print run to a small number, sometimes only one.

The collection is being displayed at VMT in conjunction with the Roanoke Arts Festival and will remain there through the end of the year. The transportation-related serigraphs were produced by some of the premier artists in the genre.

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Soon we will feature a locomotive cab inside our building. Norfolk Southern donated the cab after converting an SD-40 diesel electric into a “calf,” a unit that cannot be operated solo but is lashed together with other locomotives to provide additional power. The six-axle SD40 was manufactured by General Motors' Electro-Motive Division beginning in 1966 and became the best-selling locomotive of all time.

The cab should be in place early in 2009. It will allow visitors to experience the inside of a diesel loco. In the future we hope to add a locomotive simulator to our collection.

Take the Bus

VMT will debut another new exhibit soon. In fact, the Lawrence Gallery has already unofficially opened, though it still needs some finishing touches—narratives and signage are not complete yet. It showcases The Messimer Collection, an exhibit on bus transportation, along with a feature on the Virginian, Roanoke’s other railroad. Volunteers have done much of the work on the project.

The museum gratefully acknowledges retired Greyhound driver Harry Messimer for the donation and installation of his collection which features artifacts and memorabilia spanning over 75 years of Greyhound history.

The Messimer Collection features the top dog of the 20th century highways. Begun in the rugged iron ore country of Hibbing, Minnesota in 1914 by a Swedish entrepreneur named Carl Wickman, Greyhound Bus Lines would become the largest bus line in the history of the nation.

For 15 cents a ride, Wickman transported miners from the Oliver Iron Mines in Hibbing to the new residential town of Alice. Wickman’s first year profits were $8,000. Over the years his company would reach revenues of $1.045 billion with a fleet of over 3,500 coaches.

In 1921 Wickman’s coaches were nicknamed greyhounds because of their sleek profile and gray paint. By 1929 the galloping greyhound had become the company’s official logo. During WW II the bus line began to train women drivers due to the demand for men in the military. Those female drivers, along with their male cohorts, transported troops coast to coast.

The collection includes signs, photos, toy buses, ticket stubs, magazine clippings, safety and service awards, hats, belt buckles, maps, calendars, promotional, promotional items and memorabilia that were sold at station gift shops.

Historic items from Trailways, the rival that Greyhound finally ran down, and local fixture Abbott Bus Lines also have displays. In addition, visitors can learn about industry labor issues, the connection between Greyhound and Trailways and the train industry, and the role buses played during the war and civil rights movements.

We will let you know the official opening date and provide details of the Virginian exhibit a little later. Meanwhile, come run with the big dogs. The Lawrence Gallery offers an express cruise down memory lane.