N&W in 1903 -- Steel Rail

[NW Mailing List]

RELAYING THE WHOLE LINE WITH NEW STEEL
------
Great Work Upon the Great System is Now Rapidly Nearing Completion
------
    The whole Norfolk and Western railroad system, including about 1, 700 miles of line, in a few weeks will have been refurnished with new rails.  Forty-five thousand tons of steel rails of the eighty-five and ninety pound weights [per yard] will have been laid this year.  With the exception of a few short stretches in Ohio, the whole of the main line from Columbus to Roanoke has been refitted with ninety pound rails.  Just now the Shenandoah Valley division, from  Hagerstown, Md., to Roanoke, is being refitted with eight-five pound rails.  The heavier rails are used on the main line because of the immense tonnage and heavy loads that are hauled from the Pocahontas coal fields.

Bluefield Daily Telegraph
September 12, 1903

[According to the 1903 Annual Report the N&W still had 14.69 miles of iron rail, mainly on the Shenandoah Division, e.g., Main Line siding 1.08 miles, Crimora Branch 1.96 miles, Shenandoah Ore Branch 6.96 miles.]

Gordon Hamilton
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/attachments/20080129/0cadf753/attachment.html>