Y out of Saltvile.

[NW Mailing List]

Ed,

Having married a Saltville girl in 1956, I began my on-going visits to that
friendly spot just as steam was going away. Never saw a Y in action and to
this day have a hard time visualizing one of those huge Mallets coming and
going on the branch from Glade Spring. My father-in-law was the foundry
foreman at the Olin plant and so had responsibilities for the upkeep of
their ex-NW No. 11 which I did photograph on it's retirement day. Many have
been critical of the town's councilmen for not insisting that the railroad
restore the grade and relay new tracks after the big sink hole developed in
Plasterco at the south end of Saltville so that new industry could be lured
by rail service. But that was not to be and those heavy shipments of
chemicals from Olin, and plasterboard from US Gypsum, went out on trucks
until those plants were dismantled. Of course it has to be said that the
heavy hand of the EPA was involved and changed the town's
future dramatically.

Mike Pierry, Jr.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist6.pair.net/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/attachments/20150814/6772ddd0/attachment.html>