Roundhouses in Roanoke

[NW Mailing List]

Ken,

These dates you've given would seem to indicate that there were 6 roundhouses standing in Roanoke for ten years 1924-1934. From my memory I'm thinking  Shaffers Crossing roundhouse was built in 1924. I've not looked up to confirm however.
To my knowledge the remaining roundhouse in East End Shops is the last original building of the Roanoke Machine Works. There was a portion of the original RMW foundry standing (later became part of the Research Lab) until a few years ago. It was attached to the east end of the Boiler Shop.

John Garner

P.S. Do Abe's slides show it being torn down or just abandoned. I haven't seen them. Thx.

-----Original Message-----
From: NW Mailing List [mailto:nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org] 
Sent: Thursday, September 19, 2019 1:36 PM
To: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
Subject: Re: Roundhouses in Roanoke

John

The roundhouse for the VGN was taken down in summer 1960 as per Abe Burnett’s slides. The two at 12th Street came down in 1934 just before year end from a file I have somewhere on them. The Shaffer Crossing one stood until about 1982, the passenger car one at Roanoke Shops is still standing, the one at the Shops turntable was still there, late steam era, like 1957, but I don’t know exactly when it was taken down.

Best
Ken Mller

> On Sep 19, 2019, at 9:58 AM, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
> 
> For general interest.
> 
> Portion of a Roanoke map c.1930 by Sone Printing Co.
> 
> For a relatively small city . . . six roundhouses are shown standing 
> at that particular time. Not sure for how many years that was true. Ten at most?
> 
> John Garner, Newport VA
> 
> 
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