When did DS Move from Central Depot to Roanoke?

[NW Mailing List]

Abram,

I can't help you with the DS question, but your question about division name changes piqued my curiosity, so I have been doing some tedious research in the Annual Reports in the Archives.  There were many changes in the various divisions in early years as the railroad changed, so I have decided to try to cover all of them in an article that I hope to submit to The Arrow for all to see.

The answer to your question about the date that the Western Division was changed to the Radford Division is a little complicated (like a number of other division name changes).

Based on the Annual Reports (particularly tables giving traffic from each station on each division),  the Western Division (end stations Radford and Bristol) and the Radford Division (end stations Roanoke and Ada) both came into existence in 1888 (but, note that there was an earlier Western Division that appears to have come into existence in 1883 covering everything from Lynchburg west, except the Flat Top Division).  Remember, I said that it was complicated!

The Western Division became the Pulaski Division in 1891, and remained that way until 1897 when the Pulaski Division and the original Radford Division were combined into the Radford Division as most of us know or remember it.  Oh yes, there was a North Carolina Division that joined the Radford Division in 1897 also.

This little snippet of what I have found omits slight changes in the end stations from year to year, such as the east-most station on the Western and Pulaski Divisions was variously given as Radford, East Radford, New River.  This end station change occurred several places as the point where two divisions met was shifted from one division to another (because Ada was the west-most station on the Radford Division, it meant that Bluefield was part of the Flat Top Division of that day).  I hope to include these end-station changes in the article.  Trying to sift all of this out and arrange it in a form to serve as a convenient reference in an Arrow article has, and continues to be, a challenge.

Gordon Hamilton

----- Original Message ----- 
  From: NW Mailing List 
  To: nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org 
  Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2008 9:43 PM
  Subject: When did DS Move from Central Depot to Roanoke?


  Anyone have a feel for when the Train Dispatchers were moved from Central Depot (Radford) to Roanoke?

  Or when the former "Western Division" came to be styled the "Radford Division" ?

  -- abram burnett
  (always searching for needles in the haystack...)


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