Fwd: Train Orders - Roanoke - Part 2

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In further answer to your question about how operations were 
conducted at the time I hired, in 1964...

Although I hired on the Radford Division and have always considered 
myself a "Radford Division man," I moved around a lot.  Back in the 
1960s, work fluctuated incredibly.  Winters were especially bad and 
it was not unusual for a younger trainman to be "cut off" 
(furloughed) anywhere from two weeks to two or three months. I recall 
that, just after I hired, the 1955 men were wondering if they would 
be furloughed during the upcoming Winter.  If you were furloughed and 
heard that another Division needed men, you scrambled down there as 
quickly as possible and "hired out as a new man," i.e. with new 
seniority.  However, you retained your seniority on your previous 
Division, and when recalled to your previous Division, you could go 
back there or stay where you were.  It was not uncommon for some men 
to "hold seniority" on three Divisions simultaneously by doing 
this.  By moving around this way, I worked a considerable amount of 
time on (and held regular jobs on) "the Valley" (Roanoke to 
Shenandoah) and "the Punk" (Roanoke to Winston-Salem.)  Although I 
worked a good bit on the Norfolk Division (Roanoke-Crewe,) it was 
always a "We need a man to go to..." situation, and I never held 
seniority there.

We were paid on a mileage basis, and the longer the Division on which 
you worked, the more money you made.  A "basic day" for pay purposes 
was 100 miles... for that you received 8 hours pay. Anything more 
than a  hundred miles was a bonus.  If you ran 150 miles, you 
received 1 1/2 days pay.  Roanoke to Bluefield was only 100 miles, so 
you received only a "basic day" for that.  Roanoke to Bristol was 150 
miles, so we were paid 1.5 days pay for that.  Roanoke to Shenandoah 
was 132 miles, Roanoke to Crewe was somewhere around 130 miles, and 
Roanoke to Winston paid 123 miles.  So, in figuring out "where to 
stay" after recalled to your former Division, you always kept in mind 
that the longer districts had better paying jobs. (A brakeman's basic 
day when I hired was $17.56 per day.)

If you were a Radford Division man, you could count on spending most 
of your time "on the River," i.e. running to Bluefield.  "The River 
side" had 16 to 18 pool crews hauling coal, plus 6 (sometimes 8) 
crews in assigned Time Freight service.  But the Bristol Line only 
had 6 pool crews handling the Time Freights.  This meant that the 
senior men took the longer, higher paying Bristol Line jobs and the 
only way a younger man worked them was off the Extra List.

There were also Radford Division locals, but they were all "up the 
road" jobs and no Roanoke man wanted to be forced on them:  (1) The 
Ripplemeade Turn out of Bluefield, (2) the Short Run, Bluefield to 
Radford, out of Bluefield, (3) two Radford-Bristol local freights, 
(4) the Abingdon Branch job out of Bristol, and (5) daylight and an 
afternoon Glade Spring to Saltville Turns.  (6) There was also a 
North Carolina  Branch job out of Pulaski, but those guys NEVER 
marked off and I never knew of a Roanoke man being deadheaded to 
Pulaski to cover it.  There may have been a one man extra list at 
Pulaski to cover it... I don't remember... but Roanoke men never got 
deadheaded to Pulaski.  (7) The only local out of Roanoke was the 
five-day-a-week Salem Shifter and obviously the old heads stayed on 
that run.  (When I hired, a 1926 man, Otis B. Irvin, was the 
Conductor on that job.)

When I hired, the lay of the land on the Radford Division was that 
the 1945 men were on the Conductor's Extra List.  The 1940 men were 
holding regular Conductor's jobs on the pool crews hauling coal "on 
the River."  The 1926 men held the Bristol Line jobs and the Time 
Freights on "the River."  The 1918-1926 men were on the passenger 
trains.  And I remember there was still one 1917 hire brakeman 
running around... Jasper Wilkerson, who had never "taken promotion to 
Conductor."  Jasper was on a Bristol Line job, obviously.

To get back to train operations...

The whole "Roanoke District" of the Shenandoah Division (Roanoke to 
Shenandoah) had been made CTC in the late 1940s.  So it did not take 
Train Orders to run there.  But there was the Time Table requirement 
that all trains get a Clearance Card (and orders if necessary) at the 
initial terminal. At Roanoke, one got Train Orders and/or a Clearance 
Card from the operator at DO Shaffers Crossing, and in Shenandoah at 
AN in the Shenandoah Yard Office.  Some stations along the way still 
had Train Order signals and could deliver Train Orders if 
necessary.  Hollins, Cloverdale, Buchannan, Grottoes, Elkton, and 
Glasgow come to mind... I would have to think about any others that 
may have still been open.

The Norfolk Division between Roanoke and Crewe (including the 
Virginian Ry portion) was also CTC, except for the "Old Line" via 
Farmville, which was single track automatic block with no current of 
traffic, and Time Table superiority still prevailed here.  I recall 
catching Train Orders at Farmville giving us right over No 26, to 
operate via the Old Line. I cannot recall whether it was APB 
(absolute permissive block) or not, but we were so il-ilnformed back 
in those days that we would have had no concept of what that 
meant.  The Old Line through Lynchburg (Phoebe to Forest) was still 
in, but was used only by the Lynchburg based crews.  I never made a 
complete trip over the Lynchburg Old Line, although I did make one 
dead-of-the-night move from Forest to Lynchburg during a wreck detour 
of some kind. The East End of the Norfolk Division (Crewe to Norfolk) 
was till double track with Rule 251 (one-direction signaling) + 
current of traffic, as I recall.  Thus, if a train had to cross over 
and run against the current of traffic on the East End, it took Train 
Orders.  But since I never worked the East End, I cannot give you specifics.

Now to my favorite of them all, the Winston-Salem District of the 
Shenandoah Division (Roanoke to Winston-Salem.)  That's where I 
learned real railroading !  This district had automatic block 
signals, but there was no CTC.  The only thing the automatic signals 
did was space out following moves and prevent two opposing trains 
from entering a single track between passing sidings and coming to a 
"Mexican Standoff" situation.  Everything on the Winston District was 
still run by Time Table superiority, right, class and direction, and 
Train Orders.

All three districts of the Shenandoah Division were run from UD 
(which had originally stood for "Union Depot") the Train Dispatchers 
Office, located on the second floor of the Roanoke Freight Station on 
Commerce St.  UD had originally been in the Union Depot at 
Hagerstown; was moved to the upper floor of the old Roanoke passenger 
station at the time the Shenandoah Valley RR reached Roanoke; had 
thereafter been moved to second floor of the old Park Street Office 
Building, until that building burned sometime around 1935; and had 
thence been moved to the Freight Station.)  In my time, UD had on the 
daylight shift a Trian Dispatcher for the Valley and one for the 
Punk, but on second and third tricks one Train Dispatcher handled both.

The crew of a Punkin Vine train departing Roanoke received Train 
Orders and a Clearance Card when reporting for duty at DO.  But a 
long time (acouple of hours) elapsed before the crew actually hit the 
Punkin Vine.  The crew had to get the engine out of the Round House, 
proceed to Park Street, couple to the train, knock off the hand 
brakes, make a brake test, and then wait for it's turn to 
depart.  Even after departure, it ran by signals (controlled by 
Randolph Street) to JK at Walnut Avenue in South Roanoke.  Due to 
this elapsed time of an hour and a half or so, the Dispatcher 
addressed any serious orders for the southward train (meets, waits, 
etc) for delivery at JK. Quite frequently we would get seven or eight 
Train Orders at JK, such as the "work extra" order for the 
Martinsville and Bassett Switchers and meets on opposing 
trains.  (Conductors were required to "register" their trains at JK 
when going in either direction, but that's a story for another time.)

By the time the southward train got to Starkey or Wirtz, the 
operating situation had changed and there were more Train orders 
changing the meets.  Rocky Mount and Henry always had more orders for 
you (Lanahan had been torn down by the time I went to work, and 
Ferrum had just been closed but was still standing.)  Payne was a 
night-only office (11PM to 7AM.)  Martinsville was open first and 
second tricks, but was closed third trick.  Stoneville, Madison and 
Mayodan were open daylight only... no, Madison may have been open two 
shifts, I can't remember.  Walnut Cove was open continuously as I 
recall.  South of Walnut Cove, all the other stations had been 
closed, so that was the last place you could get orders.  Or was 
Walkertown still open?  I can't recall.  It was quite ordinary to get 
22 to 24 Train Orders during the course of that 123 mile run... and 
that was after the passenger trains had been taken off !  As I 
recall, Walnut Cove was the only Train Order Office ("telegraph 
office" in N&W-speak) which had a color light signal for train orders 
-- all the others had semaphores.  (Kenny on the Norfolk Div also had 
a color light signal for TO's.)

As for radios... There were none in use on the Punkin Vine except 
that the station agent had one at Bassett and occasionally his clerk 
would call one of the Bassett switchers with instructions for 
siding/customer work.  The Roanoke District of the Shenandoah 
Division had radio operable in one or two locations, but it wasn't 
widespread or reliable.  The Norfolk Division seemed to have better 
radio coverage than any other Division, but that was probably because 
of the Virginian's route having been integrated into the N&W 
operation about three years before I hired, with the necessity for 
better communications and the desire to get rid of what the industry 
calls "train order operators."  General, however, if you needed to 
talk to the Train Dispatcher, you went to a telephone box and cranked.

Another interesting topic is switchtenders.  In my time, there were 
switchtenders at Park Street; at "606" which was at the east end of 
the Receiving Yard at Shaffers Crossing; at 30th Street, known as the 
"Motive Power Switchtender," handling engines to and from the Round 
House; and at "672" at the west end of the Receiving Yard, also known 
as "the Pull In" or "the Stock Pen."  My father spoke of a 
switchtender at Henry Street, handling the switches just west of the 
Passenger Station... this job lasted up into the 1950s, I 
think.  Earlier on there had also been switchtender jobs at the east 
end of the Passenger Station.  And one at Shaffers Crossing just west 
of the tunnels, along the Westbound Main Line, to handle trains 
coming up the Running Track from the Pull Up Yard and trains into and 
out of the east end of the Empty Side Yard.  There was also a 
switchtender somewhere east of the Bristol station before CTC.  The 
switchtenders had their own roster and, as their jobs thinned out, 
were given seniority on the trainman's roster in (I think) 1957.

All this seems to me as if it were just yesterday, although it was 
before you were born !

-- adb