"UN" Tower at Shaffers Crossing

[NW Mailing List]

Perhaps you will grant me leave to post the following item of private correspondence with one of the better informed persons on N&W history. He and I have wrestled with the conundrum of UN Tower at Shaffers Crossing for several years, without achieving resolution. Not expecting anyone out there in List Land to be able to provide an answer, I post it here as an item of, well... just curosity. 

-- abram burnett 

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----- Original Message -----
From: "Abram (кириллъославъ) Burnett" 
To: 
Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2012 9:40:44 AM 
Subject: Re: Redux UN 


A theory on UN... 

Pre-1917, all Engine Crews reported to the West Roanoke Round House at 12th St and Shenandoah Ave, NE, and all Train Crews reported to the "Yard Office" on the opposite side of the yard, at 12th St & Jackson Ave, SW. 


With the extension of the yard west of Shaffers Crossing and the construction of the new Round House (1917,) it was probably thought impracticable to have all westbound Train Crews report at 12th Street and then somehow find their way to 24th St to meet the Engine Crew. 

Therefore, I surmise, the new telegraph office ("UN" Tower) was built along with the new round house. In it was placed everything a crew might need: (1) a Train Register for registering train arrivals and departures, (2) an operator for delivering Train Orders and Clearance Cards and for receiving delay reports etc, and (3) a yardmaster for handling movement arrangements. And we do know, from mention in the Time Table Special Instructions, that all three of these things existed in UN. 

But from its situation in the middle of the yard, it's pretty obvious to me that UN did not handle any signals or block trains with other open telegraph offices the operator was too far away from the westbound main line to see engine numbers and markers.). 

I am left, then, with the following questions: 

(1) Why in the world was UN placed in the middle of the yard, almost at the west opening of the new Round House, and not close to one of the Main Lines (preferably the Westbound Main Line)? 

(2) Might there have been some telegraph office in that vicinity even before "UN" tower was constructed in 1917, at the time when the yard did not extend west of 24th Street? Surely there was some telegraph office in this location, serving to give westbound trains clearance to enter the main line and proceed west, deliver any last minute Train Orders, and the like. "DO" telegraph office in 12th Street Yard Office would have been much too far away to have served this purpose in a timely manner. "WB" did not exist until the construction of the Roanoke Belt Line in about 1891 (ground broken Nov. 22, 1890, see Barnes, p. 215.) So by necessity, there almost had to be a point of communication somewhere at the west end of the old yard, around present 24th Street. May such an earlier telegraph office also have been called "UN"? Problem is, I don't think the pre-1917 Time Tables mention any telegraph office in this area. 

Well, one thinks, the Conductor on westbound freight trains could have just telephoned the Train Dispatcher (or some other designated open office) and obtained permission to open up and proceed onto the main line. But that begs the question that there were no wayside telephones in the early days. And it raises the question, Just when did the N&W install wayside telephones for the use of Train Crews? Prior to the installation of automatic block (semaphore) signals (1905 through 1910, see C.D. Potts, N&W Magazine v. 10, Feb. 1932, pp.72-75,) the matter of pulling out onto a main line (without having a collision) was very serious business. 

After the Empty Side Yard and the Big Hopper Yard were constructed circa 1917, WB was at the west end of the "new" yard and obviously handled the functions of Clearance Cards, last minute Train Orders, registering train arrivals and departures, furnishing access to the main line, and blocking trains with adjacent open offices. But I still don't understand how thing were done pre-1917. 

I knew one man who could have answered these questions... Tom Kegley, a 1906 hire engineman. Unfortunately, I was only a teenager at the time (1960) and these questions had not yet solidified in my thinking. 

A satellite image of the area involved is attached, and I have marked it to show the location of the mysterious old UN. 

-- adb 


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