Where?

[NW Mailing List]

On Wed, Nov 16, 2016 at 8:47 AM,
​Ed
 wrote:

In the early days when westbound trains had to be pushed up Alleghany
> Mountain, “Balls” was a telegraph office about three miles east of
> Elliston.  There was a sharp dip in the area which was known as “Balls
> hole”.  The dip was gradually filled in over the years.


​OK, so I went digging in my archives and found this timetable info:

Radford Division -- Timetable #4, Effective 12:01 PM Sunday, December 5,
1887
Between Roanoke and Bluefield
Miles From Telegraph Passing Sidings Station
Station Roanoke Signals Westbound Eastbound Sidings

Roanoke --       MH
West Roanoke 2.0       UN       Yard
Salem    6.1      SD       74 74       55
Glenvar  11.2     DY       74 74       7
Balls    15.6     BA       --- ---      22
Elliston 19.9     BS       110 110       90
​
​That would place it in the vicinity of Singer (give or take). There is
still a "dip" in the grade dropping down westbound from the crossovers at
Singer that bottoms out just before crossing the county line from Roanoke
to Montgomery, then climbing to top out just about under where the old U.S.
11/460 bridge crossed the tracks. The downgrade, with a string of ​4+
degree righthand curves, goes from 0.699 percent to 0.5 percent. The climb
starts at 0.70 percent, has a section of 1.20 and 0.78, levels briefly from
the Salem Brick road crossing and the bridge over the Roanoke River (at the
old Green Hill plant), then goes to 1.34 and 1.10 percent before cresting
and sliding down into Elliston and the start of the main Christiansburg
grade.

Bruce in Blacksburg
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