<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.6000.16809" name=GENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT face="Trebuchet MS">Bluefield Daily Telegraph<BR>April 5,
1909</FONT></DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=4></FONT> </DIV></DIV>
<DIV align=center><FONT size=4>OAKVALE NEWS NOTES</FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=center>------</DIV>
<DIV align=center><STRONG>Correspondent Complains of Monotony of Passing Coal
Trains</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV align=left> </DIV>
<DIV align=left> Oakvale is the train inspecting point on the
Norfolk and Western road. All coal trains stop and are overlooked.
How monotonous this becomes to the people who live along the tracks. Day
and night this work goes on, for the twenty-four hours thirty or forty trains
stop at your door, pop off their steam and shower down coal dust over you and
move on to give place for others.</DIV>
<DIV align=left> The first solid coal train on the Virginian
passed down one day this week. This is the train that was met at Sewell's
point by Mr. Rogers and other officials when the big celebration occurred
Friday.</DIV>
<DIV align=left>[<EM>Four non-railroad paragraphs are omitted here.</EM>]</DIV>
<DIV align=left> People along here are very anxious to see
passenger trains running on the Virginian. This will put them in
connection with Princeton, the capital of the county, without having to hack it
over the mud and hills of Mercer.</DIV>
<DIV align=center>------</DIV>
<DIV align=center> </DIV>
<DIV align=left>[<EM>The observation of the first full VGN coal train is
probably dependable. People around a rural place like Oakvale in those
days probably were quite observant of railroad activity .
Also, I had never heard of Oakvale being an inspection point where N&W
trains were "overlooked." I suspect that trains stopped there to have the
retainers turned down after descending the ruling grade out of
Bluefield.</EM>]<EM> </EM></DIV>
<DIV align=left><EM></EM> </DIV>
<DIV align=left><EM><FONT face=Script size=6>Gordon
Hamilton</FONT></EM></DIV></BODY></HTML>