"Towers" at Roanoke and "West Roanoke"

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N&W Engineering Drawing 5921 (archives locator HS-T10010)
http://www.nwhs.org/archivesdb/detail.php?ID=109597
dated June 18, 1903 which shows the track layout between Blue Ridge and
Walton squeezed onto a 55 foot long roll of linen, shows a signal tower
just east of milepost 256. (Just east of where Flickwir's siding is/was,
but that siding didn't exist on this drawing.)

However, this tower is located at a crossover between two main line tracks,
and at not at the east end of double track.  Could the double track in
Roanoke have ended at this this tower in 1896 - if it even existed at that
time?

N&W Engineering Drawing 2671 (archives locator HS-T10041)
http://www.nwhs.org/archivesdb/detail.php?ID=145427
dated Jan 1, 1893 (but with some updates to property lines up to 1941)
shows a signal tower at the west end of the yard ladder at approximately MP
259.5, east of where Salem Road crossed the tracks.
The same drawing shows a separate passenger station at West Roanoke on the
north side of the tracks about where Patterson Ave. SW dead-ends today at
the Roanoke River. Where the station stood then would be in the middle of
the yard tracks there today. But there is no signal tower shown there - the
next one to the west was near MP 263.5 and is labeled "Salem Signal Tower".

Both of those drawings came from the NS collection that was previously at
Virginia Tech. I suspect a 1892-1893 equivalent drawing of 2671 that covers
the east end of Roanoke is still waiting to be rediscovered among the
thousands of unprocessed drawings in that collection, that would fill in
more details. (But it's not drawing 2670, since that covers Forsyth County
NC -  drawing numbers  2665-2670 cover the Winston Salem line).

Joe Shaw

Moderator:
http://www.nwhs.org/mailinglist/2017/20170628.possible-ee-dt-roanoke-signal-tower.jpg
http://www.nwhs.org/mailinglist/2017/20170628.possible-west-roanoke-signal-tower.jpg
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