Rohrer Mines

[NW Mailing List]

Mr. Deputy Curmudgeon (Abram) -

I regret having a full-time job sometimes, because I keep missing Jim
Blackstock at the archives on Thursdays and Fridays. As a result, Gordon
Hamilton and I have spent quite a few Saturday mornings without his input
looking at this very issue of the Rorer narrow gauge ceasing operations at
Wasena after the R&S is established.

I don't have great recall of the exact dates we figured out, but I believe
we determined from N&W annual reports that the Rorer Mines connection is
made early on. Those are leased lines at the time, so there's not a lot of
description about how much money was spent or what was involved. We just
see the appearance of "Rorer Mines" or somesuch reference to Rorer. I also
have other accounts by Raymond Barnes that confirms this change as
happening somewhere in the mid-1890s. But we all know Barnes was subject to
review....

One conundrum we never figured out is how the two disparate gauges of the
Belt Line and the Narrow Gauge crossed each other at present day Wasena
Park. One day, I dragged Gordon through the woods and weeds and snakes and
chiggers to look for where we thought these two lines may have crossed. So
far, we believe we know approximately where they should have crossed, but
we have not seen any drawings (yet) of how this diamond may have looked.

Stephen Warren
Roanoke


On Mon, Jan 21, 2019 at 9:56 AM NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
wrote:

> Abe
>
> I think you may be correct.  Rohrer Mines showed up as a location on the
> W-S line in the early 20's.  This location was north of the Castle Rock
> Mine Branch.
>
> First 3 blocks are O&P station numbers and the block before the name is
> miles from Roanoke. This would indicate that cars could be billed from N&W
> origin Rohrer Mines. At least in the early 20's.
>
>
>
>
>
> Brenner Siding
> 1535
>
> 3.22 Alms House
> 1540
>
> 3.74 Rohrer Mines
>
>
>
> 5.26 Castle Rock Branch Jct.
> 1545 1250 1250 6.9 Starkey
> 1550
>
> 9.34 Fishburn
>
>
>
> 10.5 Hester (Passing siding)
>
>
> Jim Blackstock
>
> Mr. Warren -
>
>
> THANK YOU for researching/writing the history of the Rorer Roanoke &
> Pacific Fast Line RR !
>
>
> I was out scouting for traces of that pike 60 years ago.
>
>
> Question:  It has always been my guess that once the Roanoke & Southern RR
> was constructed, the Rorer track to Wasena was abandoned and Rorer gave any
> outbound traffic to the R&S (probably on a transload basis) at or near a
> place we used to call Ogburn Station.  Do you think this is correct?
>
>
> (The name Ogburn Station has been long lost, and today's people call that
> area after one of those silly Mall-thingies...  Tanglefoot, or some such ! )
>
>
> -- abram burnett,
> Deputy Curmudgeon to Mr. King, Grand Chief Curmudgeon
>
>
> ===========================================
>                   Sent to You from my Telegraph Key
> Successor to the MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH LINE of 1844
> ===========================================
>
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