N&W in 1909--Improvements

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Bluefield Daily Telegraph
September 1, 1909

DOUBLE TRACK FROM COLUMBUS TO SEA
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Norfolk and Western Also Regrading Road and Making Improvements and Extensions

    Sunday's Columbus Dispatch had its front page embellished with about a dozen cuts showing the Norfolk and Western double track work between Portsmouth and Columbus.  Accompanying the picture was the following article:
    "The busy scenes pictured in the accompanying illustrations show how the Norfolk and Western railroad is working to double track and regrade its road in Ohio.  The central part of the work now is being done north of Asheville and from there it is being pushed south toward Chillicothe.  When the work has gone that far the Norfolk and Western will have practically a double track from Columbus to the sea.
    "All of the 707 miles from Columbus to Norfolk has been practically double tracked and firmly reballasted except that portion in Ohio between Columbus and Chillicothe.  When work was begun in Ohio it started at Portsmouth and went north to Chillicothe.  Now it is being started near Columbus and pushed south.
    "The huge task of double-tracking has been going on for the last five or six years.  Thousands of men have been employed and millions of dollars have been spent.  Within the next year or two the entire plant of track rehabilitation will have been complete.  This will include the laying of additional track and new heavy rail in Ohio and other places where temporarily spurs and switches are taking the place of a solid double track. The ultimate idea is to have an actual double track all the way to the sea.
    "During the course of the work hundreds upon hundreds of southern negroes and swarms of foreign laborers are being employed.
    "The double-tracking is only a part of the new plans of this road.  The latest project of the management is to build an eighty-mile spur from Winston-Salem, N. C., to Wadesboro, N. C.  This will connect at the latter point with the Atlantic coast line [sic] and thus tap directly the rich mining fields of the southern district which owes much of its underdevelopment to lack of transportation.  This spur is to be begun in the very near future.  [This was to become the Winston-Salem Southbound Railway.]
    "In the meantime there is further immense railroad activity in the rich mining regions of West Virginia, North and South Carolina and Virginia.  The Clinchfield, Carolina & Ohio road, controlled by the Cumberland Syndicate of New York, already runs from Dante, Va., to Bostic, N. C., a distance of 212 miles.  It goes through the heart of the big mining and cotton territory.  The important thing, however, is that the same road is to be extended south to Spartanburg, S. C., (and eventually to Charleston) and north to Elkhorn, Ky., making a total mileage of 284.  At Elkhorn the prospective extension can make connections with the Chesapeake & Ohio and thus gain access to the north through Cincinnati.  However, other more direct plans are being discussed whereby the Clinchfield road may reach the lakes, but none has been finally adopted.  When the Clinchfield road is extended it can reach the sea by connecting at Spartanburg with the Seaboard Air Line.  Its plan is thus to reach from the lakes to the sea.
    "The importance of this can be seen in the fact that the Clinchfield coal people plan after this year to place 2,000,000 tons of coal annually on the market.  Also the road will open up a direct route through the mountains from Ohio to the heart of South Carolina.  It might not be far fetched to say that it may mean the nucleus for a great line from the coal and cotton fields of the south to the great lake region."
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[So, it was not just the small Bluefield newspaper that speculated on railroad matters back in those days.]

Gordon Hamilton
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