Station drawings

[NW Mailing List]

While I cannot speak directly on the Marion station, I can add some comments about the stations along the line between Bristol and Walton. Most of this came about during my research on the Wytheville station. I was never able to find a floor plan drawing of the Wytheville station. This included searching the NWHS archives, the Wythe County Historical Society, and the Wytheville Community College archives. While these drawings were undoubtedly created, they probably were not saved.

The stations along the Bristol line were originally built by the Virginia & Tennessee Railroad. Almost all of these were destroyed during the Civil War. At least some of the stations were rebuilt by the AM&O (probably most of them were). There doesn't appear to be a standard set of plans, or even standard concept, to these stations as they were rebuilt. I did determine that the Wytheville station was built to a floor plan very similar to that of Christiansburg (Cambria). The Christiansburg station was built out of wood; the Wytheville station, brick. A review of photographs of the remaining stations along the Bristol line shows similarities between pairs of stations. Pulaski and Marion have similar design elements, as do Max Meadows and Rural Retreat. I suspect that some of the stations were designed in pairs.

There is also no guarantee that what we see now represents the original plan. Wytheville was expanded in 1905, 1916, and renovated in 1949. There is very little of the original structure remaining.

Your best bet to get accurate dimensions of the Marion station is to field measure the building.  Be sure to ask permission.

Danial Fisher

From: NW Mailing List [mailto:nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org]

To further Alex's statement, which are good, I've snipped out most of his comments.
On Nov 18, 2014, at 9:16 AM, NW Mailing List wrote:


<<snip>>In all cases the structures were to be built according to plans and dimensions provided by N&W. <<snip>.This would lead us to believe that drawings existed at one time.

This is indeed the case. I acquired copies of these drawings about 40 years ago. Drawing M-382, Size and Capacities of Stations, dated August 8, 1916 is a single sheet comparison of station sizes, comparing various square foot size fo Waiting Rooms, Baggage Rooms, Express Rooms, compared to population from 1910. This is not an exhaustive list, by any means. But lists 23 locations, and the plan number to which they were built. Examples would be Waverly, Va, plan 9556 Rev, Martinsville, Y7427, Shawsville 9473, Wytheville Y-2263. Farmville Y-3569, etc.

Another drawing, M-390, Station Improvements for 1917, dated September 27, 1916, listing 17 different stations, a few plans are listed, but a column of "type" also tells a bit of a story, Marion (freight) is the Pulaski type, Narrows (pass and freight) is the Shawsville type, Dennis (pass and freight) is 2nd class type, measuring 24x76x16, plan L-145, as is Starkey and Price. The list goes on.

Both of the drawings M-382 and M-390 are likely to be part of the upcoming book on N&W stations by myself and Tim Hensley.

<<snip>>

Structural data can be obtained from the ICC Valuation Note Books. While they are not indexed, we generally know where to go to find pertinent information.

The ICC valuation files at the National Archives, while voluminous and detailed, seem to have very, very few drawings, some sketches, but are mostly raw data which takes a huge amount of time to go through.


Fortunately, when the N&W was originally built there were no communities and so therefore there was no required permitting process. However, we don't know what was required when a station was rebuilt.

I suspect that most communities in the era really had minimal requirements and a very limited staff to enforce construction, even up into the 1930s, I'd suspect.

Ken Miller


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