Walton: Why the Telegraph Call "BH" ?

[NW Mailing List]

Abe

Browns Tank.  BH.

JB


On 1/1/2018 8:46 PM, NW Mailing List wrote:
>
> I suggest that N&W Historical Society Drawing  S-CC10761, Y-794, 
> titled "N&W Rwy, Low Grade Lines Crab Creek to Back Creek, Alternate 
> Lines at Big Horseshoe," dated 8-12-1898,  may offer an explanation as 
> to how Walton Tower received the telegraph call "BH" when it was put 
> in service.
>
>
> The drawing shows five proposed routes to get around or through  the 
> "Big Horseshoe" landmass formed by a large loop in the New River, 
> which measures two linear miles end to end.  The longest of the 
> proposed routes would would have kept the railroad on the perimeter of 
> the loop, at river's edge, up one side and down the other.  The 
> shortest route was to bore a tunnel right through the hill between 
> [what later became] Bluff and [what later became] Cowan, and the Low 
> Grade construction followed the shortest route.  This shaved about 
> four miles off the overall line.
>
>
> There was no station, or even a name, at Walton before the Low Grade 
> was built, 1898-1900, and therefor there was no "BH" before that time.
>
>
> Since the big engineering challenge in construction of the Low Grade 
> was how to deal with the "Big Horseshoe," that term was without doubt 
> prevalent in the engineering and operating conversations of the time.  
> Walton was the place where the new alignment jumped off from the old, 
> and made a beeline for the "Big Horseshoe."  So I suggest that the 
> telegraph call "BH"  for the new tower was related to the Big Horseshoe.
>
>
> This is not an outlandish pipedream.  Other towers I have been 
> associated with received their telegraph calls based on proximity to 
> notable physical features:   GS located at a "grade separation" 
> between two railroads, and AO at a place locally called  "After the 
> Oxbow [in the river]," and others.  And, just eight miles to the east 
> of Walton, "BX" Tower, at the top of the Alleghenies, is said to have 
> received its telegraph call in reference to the location where the 
> buffalo, of an earlier time, had crossed the mountain.
>
>
> Additionally,  Railway Age, vol. 27, March 24, 1899, pp. 203-204, 
> states that the contract for grading, masonry and tunnel work was 
> awarded to Walton, Luck & Co. of Falls Mills, Va.  Which probably 
> explains why the name "Walton" was chosen for the east end of the Low 
> Grade line.
>
>
> -- abram burnett
>
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