Roanoke Material Yard

[NW Mailing List]

This is an interesting account of the activity at the Material Yard, but 
it reminds me of one day that I spent there doing some of the hardest 
work of my career on the NW/NS.  It was early in the summer of 1954 when 
I was employed as a short boom operator on the NW's weed spray train, 
which was under the supervision of the Engineering Department, as was 
the Material Yard.  One day we ran out of weed or grass chemical when we 
were in the vicinity of Roanoke, so while the spraying stopped pending 
receipt of a shipment of the chemical, they put our crew to work 
stacking grain doors in a box car for shipment somewhere (Anyone 
remember how grain used to be hauled in box cars with these grain doors 
placed across the box car doorway to contain the grain that was blown 
into the box car?).  Anyhow, these doors were heavy for this slight 
college student to heft, so by the end of our shift I was pooped.

Gordon Hamilton

On 9/11/2020 5:45 AM, NW Mailing List via NW-Mailing-List wrote:
> Glenn, the Material Yard is one of the dirtiest and hardest jobs in the Engineering department. The main things that constantly circulate through the yard is spikes, rail anchors or clips and tie plates. New Ties, especially switch and bridge timbers are sorted for jobs here as well.  All used scrap metals from tie and rail jobs are shipped in by gondolas and there is a long conveyor belt where the scrap is sorted all day long by employees. All used plates, and anchors are Recycled and place back into service, spikes are graded, cleaned and put through a special machine that  straightens the spikes. Then they are returned to crews for siding and yard work.
>   On of the important features there is the switch building division, as far as I know, all new switches on NS are built right there at RMY, when I was there, NS also had a contract to build some switches for Amtrak. You can find anything related to track, switch and bridge maintenance in all corners of the yard.
>
> The crew that switches the yard usually stays close to the area.
>
> The employees there have their own set of rights and are unkickable when employees are furloughed from other parts of the gang.
>
> The last time I was there, the yard crew had just picked up a freshly shopped unit, it was 4610. It had just came out of the shop in its new black “Thoroughbred” Scheme, I was surprised that it had lost its Southern Green.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> Gary P. Price
>
>> On Sep 10, 2020, at 1:33 AM, nw-mailing-list-request at nwhs.org wrote:
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>> Message: 1
>> Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2020 14:50:22 -0400 (EDT)
>> From: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
>> To: "NW-Mailing-List at nwhs.org" <NW-Mailing-List at nwhs.org>
>> Subject: Roanoke Material Yard
>> Message-ID: <mailman.1358.1599680909.21515.nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
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>> Just what is the purpose of the Material Yard?  Does it contain used material just replaced or new material ready to go out for replacing old?  Or both?   What material is included?  What does the switch crew assigned to the Material Yard do?  Does it ever leave the yard?  Do work trains pick up/discharge materials here?  The more details the better.
>> Glenn Fisher
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