N&W in 1911--Pumping station

[NW Mailing List]

Dave,

I placed the Bluefield, VA station on the south side of the track from memory, but knowing the fallibility of my memory, I checked track drawings in the Archives at this week's session and found a 1917 drawing of the proposed station in the location where I remembered it, a pertinent portion of which drawing is attached.  It even shows the steps down to the pedestrian underpass and steps up to the platform on the north side of the Clinch Valley line and to both platforms on the main line, all somewhat as I remember it.  There is also a grade crossing of the tracks provided for use of baggage and mail platform trucks.  Incidentally the 1924 N&W Annual Report indicates that a new station was built in Bluefield, VA that year.

Because the drawing referred to the proposed station, I consulted with Louis Newton to see if the station were actually built in the location shown on the drawing.  Louis checked his notebook sketches from his days as road foreman of engines on the Pocahontas Division, and his sketch of the actual location of the station agreed with the location of the proposed station shown on the drawing.

I believe that I recall that you lived in Bluefield, VA, so I would appreciate any comments you may have that would indicate whether more research needs to be done in order that information posted on the Mailing List be as accurate as possible.

Gordon Hamilton
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: NW Mailing List 
  To: nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org 
  Sent: Saturday, February 12, 2011 7:50 AM
  Subject: Re: N&W in 1911--Pumping station


  Gordon:

  I suspect you may have meant to say either that "In later years...station was on the north side of the Clinch Valley track...." or that it was on the "....south side of the main line track...". 

  Dave Phelps

  In a message dated 2/12/2011 6:46:47 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org writes:
    Bluefield Daily Telegraph
    June 21, 1911

    THE GRAHAM DAILY NEWS
    ------
    New Pumping Station
        Workmen have begun the foundation for the addition to Norfolk and Western pumping station here.  The stone is being received from the quarry on the premises of Mrs. A. C. Davidson at Nemours for the masonry work.
    ------
    [In 1911 at the junction where the Clinch Valley line branched off the main line there was a track (long since gone) between the Clinch Valley line and the main line west of the junction that formed a wye with the main line and the Clinch Valley line.  The pumping station was inside the wye and pumped water from the nearby Bluestone River to be piped to the N&W's facilities in Bluefield, WV.  In later years the Bluefield, VA, passenger station was on the south side of the Clinch Valley track not far from where the pumping station was located.  But in 1911 the combined freight and passenger station was located east of the junction at Spruce street.  Nemours, WV (where the stone for the pumping station was quarried) is located on the N&W between Flat Top Yard and Bluestone Jct., and was the site of a large E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. gunpowder plant, presumably located there to supply the coalfields (or maybe the Hatfields and McCoys).]

    Gordon Hamilton


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