Kingston Branch at Christiansburg

[NW Mailing List]

Abram,

The Kingston Branch was also the way that the Blacksburg Branch was accessed before the direct connection to the main line was built, probably in the 1960s. Trains travelled up the Kingston Branch for less than a mile, then switched over to the Blacksburg Branch and went over the main line on a bridge (which was removed when the direct connection was put in).

Today the Kingston Branch is still in place for about a mile and until about two years ago occasionally handled a car of feed or fertilizer for the Southern States facility on the site.  In the past year the branch was paved over  where it crosses the road to Cambria and is overgrown in weeds.  The very first part of the branch (about .2 miles) is still used from time to time by MOW equipment.

I recall once seeing something on this listserve (I believe) that said the initial plan was for the Kingston Branch to go always to Floyd.  I don’t know if this is correct and it never went there.

I hope my colleagues will weigh in on this.


     Ray Smoot

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Sent: Thursday, November 2, 2017 6:18 PM
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Subject: Kingston Branch at Christiansburg


The 1897 Annual Report shows the Kingston Branch to have been 3.68 miles in length.



It would be a MOST WORTHY undertaking for someone familiar with local geography and history (hint-hint to to the firm of Hawkins Harper & Smoot, LLC) to build a .KMZ Google Earth file showing exactly where it was located... and make it available.



In my time there (beginning in 1964,) the Kingston Branch was just a dilapidated, forgotten track back into the weeds.  We occasionally shoved a car into the track, but I don't think there was any revenue business there.



-- abram burnett
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