Where was "South Roanoke" ?

[nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org]

The Rorer mine railroad left the current alignment of the Belt Line approximately where Murray Run empties into the Roanoke River.  The alignment then proceeded south and crossed what is now Brandon Avenue between the gas station and the cleaners.  and then on a tangent at about a 30 degree angle to the Webber Expressway.  It crossed Colonial Avenue at about the intersection of Persinger Road and then the Winston Salem District (R&S), at grade, at Milepost R8.  That MP is located adjacent to the VWCC parking lot.  The line then proceeded to follow Ore Branch to the mines.  Ore Branch is the stream beside the Webber Expressway and in the concrete bed at the intersection of Apperson Drive, US220 and VA419.  A large portion of the right-of-way is Southern Hills Drive, just north of the US220 Wal-Mart.  To get to that, turn left off of US220 at the IHop and go right.  That becomes Southern Hills Drive.
There other traces of the Rorer Mines Railroad around as well.  There is a map in the Roanoke Public Library near the Virginia Room that shows the right-of-way on the city side of the Roanoke River.  There is another in the office of the Circuit Court Clerk.  The Rorer line crossed the Roanoke River just east of Wasena Bridge and climbed to the top where Ferdinand Avenue is now.  That, incidentally, is also named after Mr. Rorer, as was Rorer Avenue.  The line proceeded in a northwesterly direction crossing 13th Street nearly in the intersection of it and Campbell Avenue.  The line made nearly a 180 degree loop beginning at about 15th or 16th Street to come back to the N&W where there was a transfer station.  If you go the 14th and 15th Streets and Jackson Avenue, you will notice a dip in the road.  I believe this is where the lead to the transfer station was.  Also, where the Roanoke Ice plant is now, Rorer mines had a cleaning plant.  Soon after the turn of the century, the line from the cleaning plant to the N&W transfer station was abandoned, but the bridge remained and was used by the public.  It was known as "Narrow Guage Cut".  I believe that bridge remained until Wasena Bridge was completed.  There is a lithograph of that bridge on the wall at McVey Hardware, located in Grandin Village.
This is probably more than you ever wanted to know, but in answer to the comment that the Rorer mines line followed along the R&S alignment from McClanahan Street is that it did not.
                                            Don Corbin              
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org 
  To: nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org 
  Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2004 9:11 AM
  Subject: Re: Where was "South Roanoke" ?


    Does this line and the stub at the old Valley Lumber pre-date the Winston-Salem Branch by several decades? I recall an old USGS map of the South Roanoke area (the earlier 15-minute series maps, dated around 1900 or so) that shows a line extending west along a route that would parallel current Franklin Road - probably laid on the alignment of the W-S Branch - but which turned south, along current U.S. Route 220, and eventually east and into a hollow where the Rorer Iron Mines were. 
     
    (I grew up in this area of South Roanoke and evidence of many mine tracks are still all over this valley along with the remains of the open pit mines.) 

  [Randy Rivinus]


      ----- Original Message ----- 

      From: nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org 

      To: nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org 

      Sent: Saturday, October 30, 2004 5:57 PM

      Subject: Where was "South Roanoke" ?


      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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