N&W in 1908 -- Strenuous trip

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Bluefield Daily Telegraph
January 14, 1908

TEN MILES IN EIGHT HOURS
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Double Header Freight Train Out of Roanoke Made Slow Time.
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    Roanoke News:  A double-header freight train that left Roanoke Sunday morning at 1 o'clock had about as strenuous an experience as ever falls to the lot of railroad men.  The train was made up of fifty-four cars, many of them loaded, and the trouble began when the heavy grade by Cloverdale and Troutville was reached.
    Six different times the draw-head of a coupling apparatus pulled out and finally all effort to take the train in its entirety to the top of the slant was abandoned.  It was divided into two sections, and each section was taken to Troutville separately.
    Troutville is ten miles from Roanoke and it was exactly 9 o'clock when the last part of the train was placed there.  In other words it took the train  just eight hours to go ten miles, a little over a mile an hour, and the train crew had almost made a day's work and still had many more miles to go before they could have chance to rest.
    When the last section was taken into Troutville the first car, a flat containing as oil tank, was fastened to the engine by means of chains and this car had to be left on the siding.
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[This was before the days of "Precision Transportation" of course.]

Gordon Hamilton
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