N&W office framed wall scenery pictures

[NW Mailing List]

Thanks to all for replies about the office-wall scenery pictures.  I hope that other people familiar with these pictures will continue to report them.  I won't be the one to write an article, but they would be an interesting topic for an Arrow (hint, hint).

I recently acquired three for Boyce station, but only one is pre-dieselization which is the era that Boyce was an open agency.  A short description of the scenes are:

1. A manifest freight behind a steam engine appears on curved track in the foreground, but is very small relative to a wide, sweeping view of valley farmland.  It may be Roanoke Valley instead of Shenandoah Valley.  The freight train is partially obscured by foliage.  I am told that this view hung in the Motive Power Building.

2. Coal train of 50-ton N&W hoppers behind a set of GP-9 diesel units (I think; I'm not an engine specialist) on a curved steel trestle with mining town housing stretched along a road that goes under the trestle.  The picture seems similar to ones where I've seen box-cab electric trains posed for company photos, but the catenary system has been removed.  This view is said to have hung in Paul Stites' office.

3. Manifest freight train behind a set of GP-9 diesel units (?) on tangent track along the New River, possibly near Pearisburg.  This scene is similar to one featuring a J pulling a passenger train.  This view is likewise attributed to Paul Stites' wall in the General Office Building.

I will be glad to provide a not-the-best digital photo of each to anyone upon request to f_scheer at yahoo.com.  If anyone has an interest in swapping for the second two, I'm looking for pre-diesel era framed pictures more like the first one, in which the train is present but not necessarily the central subject.

Good night and good morning,

Frank Scheer
f_scheer at yahoo.com