WEST ROANOKE: Where Was It, Exactly...?

[NW Mailing List]

On Thu, Jun 6, 2019 at 9:54 PM Abram wrote:

> Fuzzy concepts are an anathema.
>
>
> Slightly before my time, "West Roanoke" had meant the west end of the yard
> ("Park St Yard") and the original Round House in the vicinity of 12th St &
> Shenandoah Avenue.  That yard was extended westwardly to 16th St around
> 1936-38, and thereafter "West Roanoke" was often construed to mean the area
> of the new west end at 16th St.
>
>
> The Time Tables of circa 1903 show West Roanoke as being 2.0 miles west of
> Roanoke.  Taking "Roanoke" to be the center line of the original Shenandoah
> Valley / Norfolk & Western union depot east of Jefferson Street, I measured
> westward 2.0 miles, following the original alignment of the main line
> before the 1916-1918 changes.  The 2.0 mile point put me about in the
> middle of the Dead Engine Storage Yard and about 360 feet almost-due-north
> of the old, two-story  Shaffers Crossing  Hump "Scale House" building which
> was demolished a few years ago.
>

Here are three letters from the L.E. Johnson correspondence files in GOB
East (folder 35, file 1301, 'Improvements at West Roanoke Yard,' 1906) that
may or may not help in idenifying locations.

Bruce in Blacksburg
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