Page 14 - March April 2002

Ted’s Travels... Part Two
Ted Roberts
Following the Coal Heritage Trail next day, there was no evidence of any heritage notices, and few mines to be seen.
Reaching Mullens, once a major centre of the Virginian Railway, with the Motor Barn for the maintenance of electric locomotives used for coal haulage out of the mountains to Roanoke and beyond. The sheds were still there but are now leased to a company applying protective coatings to steelwork. A lot of the town showed boarded up businesses. I met an enthusiastic painter, who had done a large mural on a supermarket wall, of a Virginian steam-hauled passenger train. He was also looking after a preserved caboose in good condition now, but which had suffered from an internal fire caused by vandals. At the time of my visit, the river through the town was around ten feet below street level. Three weeks or so later, flood water has been reported to six feet ABOVE street level in the town centre, doing a lot of damage, amongst which was the loss of many of the photographs and records held by Jack Feller, the writer of a four volume detailed history of the town (to 1941 so far) The flood will probably have caused damage to the above caboose, or may even have washed it away! Not far down the road at Elmore is a wye and locomotive base, with trains of loaded hoppers being assembled in the yards between there and Mullens. Seeing me on the road overbridge armed with cameras, a NS truck stopped and the driver suggested that if I went back down the road and across ‘the swing bridge’ I would see more action. The only swing bridge I could find was a suspension footbridge with a warning to keep out! I risked crossing the river on it, but no signs of the promised action in the yard so I retreated and went on my way. Passing a few mining operations and using a minor road through Davy parallel to the N&W main line from Bluefield to the west, I reached Iaeger where a branch line runs south and winds through the mountains to eventually reach the line running SW from Bluefield to Norton and the ex L&N. Just down the branch at Auville was an engine facility with the solid remains of a concrete
coaling tower, and another yard with trains being assembled. I followed the branch as far as War, where the N&W station is complete, but is now the council offices and police station, painted white and green.
More minor roads got me back to the main line at Welch, and through more sad mining towns to Bluefield where the extensive yards were lightly loaded both in the evening and the following morning. A visit to Bramwell, a small town once considered the richest town in the United States for its size, with reportedly 14 millionaires living there, with 14 trains a day (one each??) - until the depression of the 1930s hit the coal business. The town remains intact, much as it was, though it lost the railway services, and the station became derelict. However, it is now rebuilt in its original design looking good in new paint, but not yet open as the planned visitors’ centre. There is N&W dining car there, which it is intended to renovate and open as a restaurant. Roanoke on July 4th was virtually free of traffic - road or rail - so I moved on for a quick glance at Crewe in pouring rain. The small railway centre was firmly closed, so on to Ashland, encouraged by the editor’s note on trains down the street. There are, and what I found interesting was that the houses were all high class residences, not an old down town area. Joining the AMTRAK trains was akin to getting on a tram in the middle of the street. I was also treated to the sight of a long train of Tropicana box cars heading south to be refilled with more Florida orange juice. I now had to get back north to my starting point, and did it by travelling much of the editor’s route, including Bumpass, but in the reverse direction. An empty CSX hopper train was going the same way, and winning. Shortly afterwards I was passed by a CSX truck. The train had come to a standstill at a grade crossing, as did the truck, and in the middle of nowhere, a crew change was made, which seemed an odd arrangement.
I then had a couple of nights in the Bears Den youth hostel, 40 miles west of Washington, from which I was able to visit Harper’s Ferry. The Shenandoah and Potomac rivers join there, and so do two
B&O routes, one along each river valley. Both cross the Shenandoah and the remains of the C&O canal on a pair of steel bridges, with the tracks joining on north end of the bridges to enter a tunnel through a rock promontory. The station is run down, but is still in use for MARC trains to Washington DC, and a daily AMTRAK Chicago-Washington train each way. Before the Civil War, Harpers Ferry was an arsenal, and also had a large armoury storing weapons. It was here that the anti-slavery John Brown seized the armoury in an attempt to raise a slaves rebellion, which failed. During the civil war, the town was on the front line, both sides wanted its armament production facilities, with the result that it was virtually destroyed, and did not recover until it became a tourist attraction some years later!
St. Louis and the NMRA
National Convention
Perhaps every member of the NMRA hopes to attend a national convention some day. This was my first (and possibly last) attendance. As anyone who has looked at the Bulletin will know, it lasts for a week, and a detailed description is not practicable, but some impressions are worth recording. The first is of the magnitude of the event. There were about 2500 registered participants. On offer were visits to 82 layouts; 20 prototype and industrial visits; and 26 general and ‘family’ tours. Add to that 100 rail clinic subjects and it is obvious that there has to be selection of activities. There were typically visits morning, afternoon, and evening, though it was suggested that it was not sound to attempt ‘back to back’ visits because return times were not guaranteed, and departures would not be held back. The layout tours generally included four visits, and timings depended on the distance to be travelled - my two morning layout tours departed at 07.15! My choice covered a variety of scales and themes and included some layouts which had been shown in the Bulletin or elsewhere to see if they lived up to the photographs. So what were the highlights of the 16 layouts I saw? First, that most were operating on DCC with sound added; second, that to achieve
14 ROUNDHOUSE