N&W in 1912--Pier 4

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Bluefield Daily Telegraph
Sat., May 4, 1912

STRUCTURAL STEEL FOR NEW PIER ORDERED
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Largest Pier in The World To Be Erected at Lambert's Point By Norfolk and Western
    The Norfolk and Western has let the contract for the world's biggest coal pier, and the Virginia Bridge and Iron Company, of Roanoke, will manufacture the structural steel needed.  The piers which will be erected at Lambert's Point will have a maximum capacity of 6,000 tons per hour, and will take care of the needs of the road for many years to come.
    Contracts for the foundations, bulkheads and sub-structure, as has been reported, have been let to Henry Steers, Inc., of New York, and the work will be pushed as rapidly as possible, but the work will take many months before it will be completed.  The construction will be under the immediate direction of Chief Engineer C. S. Churchill, of the Norfolk and Western, assisted by his engineering force.
    The new pier will accommodate all classes of cars, whereas, now, nothing but certain classes of cars can be handled at the piers.  In addition modern machinery for handling the coal with the least possible breakage will be installed, this concession having been made at the request of the coal operators, who find a more ready market for coal which has not been badly broken in handling [breakage of lump coal was an issue in those days].
    The steel structure will be 1,400 feet long, 50 feet wide and 90 feet above high water, and will accommodate eight ordinary coaling steamers at one time.
    The pier will be equipped with huge elevators for lifting the pier cars, twelve in number, of 220,000 pounds capacity each, which will be returned to the elevators on a gravity track through the center of the structure.
    The structural steel for this work will be manufactured at the local [Roanoke] plant of the Virginia Bridge and Iron company and the pier will be completed in about twelve months.  The total cost of the pier is about $1?,500,000*.
    The enormity of the size of the contract can be only realized by the giving to the public some idea of the number of cars needed to transport this steel from Roanoke to Norfolk.  The total amount involved is 7,500 tons of steel.  About thirty-five tons to a car is about all that can be transported at once.  This means that it will require about 225 cars, or three or four train loads to haul the steel between this city [Roanoke] and Lamberts Point.
    It is the intention of the railway company to revise the Lamberts Point yards so as to put in a large feed yard to this new pier, the railroad cars to be dumped into pier cars and the latter will be elevated upon the new pier for dumping into vessels.
*The second digit from the left was unreadable.
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[The N&W probably took a cue from the Virginian in the use of electric coneyor cars, but with elevators substituted for barneys.  Richard Prince's description of the 1909 Virginian coal pier, "High level type with rotary dumpers on shore for loading electric conveyor cars that were barneyed up to [the] deck."

Gordon Hamilton
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