N&W in 1908 -- Rain, slides

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Bluefield Daily Telegraph
April 7, 1908

ALL TRAINS FROM WEST AGAIN COME IN LATE
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More Trouble Reported on Main Line And Dry Fork Branch Said To Be In Bad Shape
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    More trouble has been reported on the main line of the Norfolk & Western.  Yesterday as two sections of freight train No. 83 were on the point of leaving the local yards, a message was received stating that another slide about 50 feet long and 6 feet deep had occurred near Glen Alum so the trains had to lay over for another day.  This slide also cut off passenger train No. 4 and it arrived in Bluefield 7 hours behind schedule time.
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Dry Fork Branch in Bad Shape
    C. Emmett Brown, a traveling man out of Lynchburg, arrived in the city yesterday and reports a serious state of affairs on the Dry Fork branch of the Norfolk and Western, where he had been slide bound for three days.  Thursday he walked the twenty-nine miles from Canebrake to Iaeger in order to get back to the main line.  He said that he had been on the road for nine years, yet never before had he seen a railroad so completely tied up by slides.  On the Dry Fork branch alone there are more than a dozen places where the road is blocked by masses of rock and earth.  From indications it will yet be two days before traffic can be restored over this branch.  The worst case is near Bartley, where 300 feet of track, ties, roadbed and all were swept by the landslide into the valley fifty feet below.
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Gordon Hamilton
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