Where was "South Roanoke" ?

[nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org]

Several men who hired about 1920 told me that they had heard even older men 
on the railroad speak of "South Roanoke."  They recalled that this location had 
been mentioned as a block and/or train order office in a one-story shanty.  
They had no exact information as to its location, but believed it to have been 
several hundred feet south of Franklin Road on the Punkin' Vine, at Roanoke.  
Perhaps it was the location which handled the switch diverting northward 
trains off the Punkin'Vine onto the Belt Line for their trip to "WB" (West Belt 
Line Jct," which in my time was called the "Radford Division Pull In.")

As I recall, the siding at Valley Lumber Co (as it was called 40 years ago,) 
located in the southwest quadrant of the intersection of Franklin Road and 
Brandon Avenue, gave evidence of having been extended, at one time, southward 
past the lumber company buildings, and having joined the Punkin' Vine main track. 
 In other words, the Valley Lumber Co. siding might have been the stump of an 
old connecting track providing for northward movement off the Punkin' Vine 
into the Roanoke Belt Line.

Had "South Roanoke" been at this location, such would be completely 
consistent with the verbal tradition that, during World War I, northward Punkin'Vine 
trains used the Roanoke Belt Line to get to "WB" (which was then at the west end 
of the Belt Line, at the Roadway Material yard and ae the Radford Division 
Pull In.

Has anyone concrete information on "South Roanoke" ?

And the crown jewel would be if someone could come up with the telegraph call 
for "South Roanoke" !

-- abram burnett
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