Train Orders - Roanoke - Part 2

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Where would one find the first part of this article?  Thank you in advance.

Dan Winter
Formerly Wytheville, VA
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Subject: Fwd: Train Orders - Roanoke - Part 2



> In further answer to your question about how operations were conducted at 

> the time I hired, in 1964...

>

> Although I hired on the Radford Division and have always considered myself 

> a "Radford Division man," I moved around a lot.  Back in the 1960s, work 

> fluctuated incredibly.  Winters were especially bad and it was not unusual 

> for a younger trainman to be "cut off" (furloughed) anywhere from two 

> weeks to two or three months. I recall that, just after I hired, the 1955 

> men were wondering if they would be furloughed during the upcoming Winter. 

> If you were furloughed and heard that another Division needed men, you 

> scrambled down there as quickly as possible and "hired out as a new man," 

> i.e. with new seniority.  However, you retained your seniority on your 

> previous Division, and when recalled to your previous Division, you could 

> go back there or stay where you were.  It was not uncommon for some men to 

> "hold seniority" on three Divisions simultaneously by doing this.  By 

> moving around this way, I worked a considerable amount of time on (and 

> held regular jobs on) "the Valley" (Roanoke to Shenandoah) and "the Punk" 

> (Roanoke to Winston-Salem.)  Although I worked a good bit on the Norfolk 

> Division (Roanoke-Crewe,) it was always a "We need a man to go to..." 

> situation, and I never held seniority there.

>

> We were paid on a mileage basis, and the longer the Division on which you 

> worked, the more money you made.  A "basic day" for pay purposes was 100 

> miles... for that you received 8 hours pay. Anything more than a  hundred 

> miles was a bonus.  If you ran 150 miles, you received 1 1/2 days pay. 

> Roanoke to Bluefield was only 100 miles, so you received only a "basic 

> day" for that.  Roanoke to Bristol was 150 miles, so we were paid 1.5 days 

> pay for that.  Roanoke to Shenandoah was 132 miles, Roanoke to Crewe was 

> somewhere around 130 miles, and Roanoke to Winston paid 123 miles.  So, in 

> figuring out "where to stay" after recalled to your former Division, you 

> always kept in mind that the longer districts had better paying jobs. (A 

> brakeman's basic day when I hired was $17.56 per day.)

>

> If you were a Radford Division man, you could count on spending most of 

> your time "on the River," i.e. running to Bluefield.  "The River side" had 

> 16 to 18 pool crews hauling coal, plus 6 (sometimes 8) crews in assigned 

> Time Freight service.  But the Bristol Line only had 6 pool crews handling 

> the Time Freights.  This meant that the senior men took the longer, higher 

> paying Bristol Line jobs and the only way a younger man worked them was 

> off the Extra List.

>

> There were also Radford Division locals, but they were all "up the road" 

> jobs and no Roanoke man wanted to be forced on them:  (1) The Ripplemeade 

> Turn out of Bluefield, (2) the Short Run, Bluefield to Radford, out of 

> Bluefield, (3) two Radford-Bristol local freights, (4) the Abingdon Branch 

> job out of Bristol, and (5) daylight and an afternoon Glade Spring to 

> Saltville Turns.  (6) There was also a North Carolina  Branch job out of 

> Pulaski, but those guys NEVER marked off and I never knew of a Roanoke man 

> being deadheaded to Pulaski to cover it.  There may have been a one man 

> extra list at Pulaski to cover it... I don't remember... but Roanoke men 

> never got deadheaded to Pulaski.  (7) The only local out of Roanoke was 

> the five-day-a-week Salem Shifter and obviously the old heads stayed on 

> that run.  (When I hired, a 1926 man, Otis B. Irvin, was the Conductor on 

> that job.)

>

> When I hired, the lay of the land on the Radford Division was that the 

> 1945 men were on the Conductor's Extra List.  The 1940 men were holding 

> regular Conductor's jobs on the pool crews hauling coal "on the River." 

> The 1926 men held the Bristol Line jobs and the Time Freights on "the 

> River."  The 1918-1926 men were on the passenger trains.  And I remember 

> there was still one 1917 hire brakeman running around... Jasper Wilkerson, 

> who had never "taken promotion to Conductor."  Jasper was on a Bristol 

> Line job, obviously.

>

> To get back to train operations...

>

> The whole "Roanoke District" of the Shenandoah Division (Roanoke to 

> Shenandoah) had been made CTC in the late 1940s.  So it did not take Train 

> Orders to run there.  But there was the Time Table requirement that all 

> trains get a Clearance Card (and orders if necessary) at the initial 

> terminal. At Roanoke, one got Train Orders and/or a Clearance Card from 

> the operator at DO Shaffers Crossing, and in Shenandoah at AN in the 

> Shenandoah Yard Office.  Some stations along the way still had Train Order 

> signals and could deliver Train Orders if necessary.  Hollins, Cloverdale, 

> Buchannan, Grottoes, Elkton, and Glasgow come to mind... I would have to 

> think about any others that may have still been open.

>

> The Norfolk Division between Roanoke and Crewe (including the Virginian Ry 

> portion) was also CTC, except for the "Old Line" via Farmville, which was 

> single track automatic block with no current of traffic, and Time Table 

> superiority still prevailed here.  I recall catching Train Orders at 

> Farmville giving us right over No 26, to operate via the Old Line. I 

> cannot recall whether it was APB (absolute permissive block) or not, but 

> we were so il-ilnformed back in those days that we would have had no 

> concept of what that meant.  The Old Line through Lynchburg (Phoebe to 

> Forest) was still in, but was used only by the Lynchburg based crews.  I 

> never made a complete trip over the Lynchburg Old Line, although I did 

> make one dead-of-the-night move from Forest to Lynchburg during a wreck 

> detour of some kind. The East End of the Norfolk Division (Crewe to 

> Norfolk) was till double track with Rule 251 (one-direction signaling) + 

> current of traffic, as I recall.  Thus, if a train had to cross over and 

> run against the current of traffic on the East End, it took Train Orders. 

> But since I never worked the East End, I cannot give you specifics.

>

> Now to my favorite of them all, the Winston-Salem District of the 

> Shenandoah Division (Roanoke to Winston-Salem.)  That's where I learned 

> real railroading !  This district had automatic block signals, but there 

> was no CTC.  The only thing the automatic signals did was space out 

> following moves and prevent two opposing trains from entering a single 

> track between passing sidings and coming to a "Mexican Standoff" 

> situation.  Everything on the Winston District was still run by Time Table 

> superiority, right, class and direction, and Train Orders.

>

> All three districts of the Shenandoah Division were run from UD (which had 

> originally stood for "Union Depot") the Train Dispatchers Office, located 

> on the second floor of the Roanoke Freight Station on Commerce St.  UD had 

> originally been in the Union Depot at Hagerstown; was moved to the upper 

> floor of the old Roanoke passenger station at the time the Shenandoah 

> Valley RR reached Roanoke; had thereafter been moved to second floor of 

> the old Park Street Office Building, until that building burned sometime 

> around 1935; and had thence been moved to the Freight Station.)  In my 

> time, UD had on the daylight shift a Trian Dispatcher for the Valley and 

> one for the Punk, but on second and third tricks one Train Dispatcher 

> handled both.

>

> The crew of a Punkin Vine train departing Roanoke received Train Orders 

> and a Clearance Card when reporting for duty at DO.  But a long time 

> (acouple of hours) elapsed before the crew actually hit the Punkin Vine. 

> The crew had to get the engine out of the Round House, proceed to Park 

> Street, couple to the train, knock off the hand brakes, make a brake test, 

> and then wait for it's turn to depart.  Even after departure, it ran by 

> signals (controlled by Randolph Street) to JK at Walnut Avenue in South 

> Roanoke.  Due to this elapsed time of an hour and a half or so, the 

> Dispatcher addressed any serious orders for the southward train (meets, 

> waits, etc) for delivery at JK. Quite frequently we would get seven or 

> eight Train Orders at JK, such as the "work extra" order for the 

> Martinsville and Bassett Switchers and meets on opposing trains. 

> (Conductors were required to "register" their trains at JK when going in 

> either direction, but that's a story for another time.)

>

> By the time the southward train got to Starkey or Wirtz, the operating 

> situation had changed and there were more Train orders changing the meets. 

> Rocky Mount and Henry always had more orders for you (Lanahan had been 

> torn down by the time I went to work, and Ferrum had just been closed but 

> was still standing.)  Payne was a night-only office (11PM to 7AM.) 

> Martinsville was open first and second tricks, but was closed third trick. 

> Stoneville, Madison and Mayodan were open daylight only... no, Madison may 

> have been open two shifts, I can't remember.  Walnut Cove was open 

> continuously as I recall.  South of Walnut Cove, all the other stations 

> had been closed, so that was the last place you could get orders.  Or was 

> Walkertown still open?  I can't recall.  It was quite ordinary to get 22 

> to 24 Train Orders during the course of that 123 mile run... and that was 

> after the passenger trains had been taken off !  As I recall, Walnut Cove 

> was the only Train Order Office ("telegraph office" in N&W-speak) which 

> had a color light signal for train orders -- all the others had 

> semaphores.  (Kenny on the Norfolk Div also had a color light signal for 

> TO's.)

>

> As for radios... There were none in use on the Punkin Vine except that the 

> station agent had one at Bassett and occasionally his clerk would call one 

> of the Bassett switchers with instructions for siding/customer work.  The 

> Roanoke District of the Shenandoah Division had radio operable in one or 

> two locations, but it wasn't widespread or reliable.  The Norfolk Division 

> seemed to have better radio coverage than any other Division, but that was 

> probably because of the Virginian's route having been integrated into the 

> N&W operation about three years before I hired, with the necessity for 

> better communications and the desire to get rid of what the industry calls 

> "train order operators."  General, however, if you needed to talk to the 

> Train Dispatcher, you went to a telephone box and cranked.

>

> Another interesting topic is switchtenders.  In my time, there were 

> switchtenders at Park Street; at "606" which was at the east end of the 

> Receiving Yard at Shaffers Crossing; at 30th Street, known as the "Motive 

> Power Switchtender," handling engines to and from the Round House; and at 

> "672" at the west end of the Receiving Yard, also known as "the Pull In" 

> or "the Stock Pen."  My father spoke of a switchtender at Henry Street, 

> handling the switches just west of the Passenger Station... this job 

> lasted up into the 1950s, I think.  Earlier on there had also been 

> switchtender jobs at the east end of the Passenger Station.  And one at 

> Shaffers Crossing just west of the tunnels, along the Westbound Main Line, 

> to handle trains coming up the Running Track from the Pull Up Yard and 

> trains into and out of the east end of the Empty Side Yard.  There was 

> also a switchtender somewhere east of the Bristol station before CTC.  The 

> switchtenders had their own roster and, as their jobs thinned out, were 

> given seniority on the trainman's roster in (I think) 1957.

>

> All this seems to me as if it were just yesterday, although it was before 

> you were born !

>

> -- adb

>

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