1907 - New Power Station Plans

[NW Mailing List]

I don't think that the N & W would have sold the land to the Roanoke Ry. & Electric Co. unless the N & W expected to get the business of delivering coal to the power plant.

Check the picture in the Virginia Tech imagebase at:

http://spec.lib.vt.edu/imagebase/local/roanoke/screen/RRE0009.jpg

This shows two coal cars sitting on the unloading trestle and an overhead clamshell crane for transferring unloaded coal into the power plant.

For more details about this station and its 1916 expansion, which included a second stack, see Jim Dalmas' book, Street Railways of Roanoke Virginia 1887 - 1948, available from the NWHS Commissary.  Among other things, the book has an aerial view on Page 41 that includes the streetcar barn as well as this power plant (with two stacks and a big pile of coal alongside the trestle).

The 152-page book is a steal at $14.95 ($12.95 for members).

Gordon Hamilton

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: NW Mailing List 
  To: NW Mailing List 
  Sent: Saturday, February 24, 2007 12:30 PM
  Subject: Re: 1907 - New Power Station Plans


    COAL OR OIL?


    RONNIE HASH


  At 11:15 PM 2/23/2007, you wrote:

    Roanoke Times - Feb 24, 1907

    NEW POWER STATION PLANS

    Railway and Electric Co. Ready to Begin Building Quarter Million Dollar Plant

        Architects and engineers in the employ of the Roanoke Railway and 
    Electric Company have nearly completed the plans and specifications 
    for the new central power station which the company is to build on 
    the site south of Walnut avenue and between the Roanoke River and the 
    Winston-Salem track of the Norfolk and Western, which the company 
    bought from the Norfolk and Western Railway Company about one week 
    ago. Such good progress has been made with the plans for the new 
    plant said the general manager of the company last night, that the 
    actual work of construction will begin in a few days, if the weather permits.
        This new power station, as has already been told in The Times, 
    will cost in the neighborhood of a quarter of a million dollars, and 
    will be a model plant of its kind -- being built of concrete, and 
    being equipped with brand new machinery throughout of the latest and 
    bext design for the generation of electricity.
        The clever advertising of the Roanoke Railway and Electric 
    Company continues to attract attention to Roanoke in various parts of 
    the country and to advertise the progressive character of this city. 
    The last issue of The Manufacturers' Record, a weekly Southern 
    industrial, railroad, and financial journal, published at Baltimore, 
    gives space to the following announcement of the new power station of 
    the Roanoke Railway and Electric Company:
        "Roanoke Railway & Electric Co. has purchased site on which to 
    erect a central power station at a cost of $225,000. The building 
    will be 100 by 150 feet, constructed entirely of reinforced concrete, 
    including the roof, and will be equipped in the beginning with five 
    boilers, each of 400 horse-power capacity, and three electric 
    generating units, each composed of a steam turbine engine set up with 
    and directly connected to an electric generator or dynamo. One of 
    these machines will be what is known as a 1600-kilowatt generator, 
    and each of the others will be a 500-kilowatt generator. This will 
    mean a total constant production of electrical energy equivalent to 
    3300 horse-power. The station will be a steam plant, and the building 
    will be so constructed to be added to when necessary. J. W. Hancock 
    is general manager."


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