1907 - Morning Train for Shenandoah Valley

[NW Mailing List]

Roanoke Times - March 22, 1907

Morning Train for Shenandoah Valley

   If the Norfolk & Western Railway Company is desirous of conferring
a special blessing upon the people of Roanoke and of the Shenandoah Valley
it will give them a morning mail and passenger train out of Roanoke.
Discussing the situation with a member of one of the wholesale houses
yesterday he stated that the trade of the Shenandoah Valley logically
belonged to Roanoke, but that owing to the indifferent mail and passenger
service his house did not make a bid for the business. The traveling
salesmen, he said, could not work the road to any satisfaction, for to go
any distance, however short, up the Valley and return, required the better
part of two days. He made the further important point that the great
educator of the trade of any section - the morning newspaper - did not get
out of Roanoke for the Valley until it was about twelvs hours old, consequently
lost its force and effect, while the morning papers from the other cities
reached the Valley early in the morning thereby identifying the Valley with the
cities in which they were published.
   We sincerely believe that if the Norfolk & Western officials would fully
weigh the situation in the light of the above, that they would, in the long run
find it very much to the interest of the road to give Roanoke a morning train.
As a revenue producer the train itself might have to be run at a loss for a
while, but it would undoubtedly, in the end, throw the business of the Valley to
Roanoke, and as the Norfolk & Western has the filed all to itself, it would get
all the benefit. As stated, the trade of the Valley logically and geographically
belongs to this city, but the mail and passenger service is so indifferent that
there is no bid for it and what comes is practically unsolicited.

Transcribed from scans by Ron Davis.

- Roger Link