Schooler Hill Old Line: Hickman's Cut and Shuffelbarger's Dip

[NW Mailing List]

Thank you, Mr. BLACKSTOCK for the helpful station information you sent.

And thank you, Mr. LINK, for digging out that article from the 1935 N&W Magazine, with its wonderful old 31 Train Order. That is one of those orders which sets up an entire day's work for the Train Dispatcher. If all goes according to plan, the DS can put his feet on the desk and just take the OS'es. But if one train stumps its toe, he will probably have to do the whole exercise all over again. (My guess is that the Train Dispatcher was located in Central Depot, Radford, at the time this order was issued.)

I have spent the best part of the day "ciphering out" (to use an old expression) all the details of the Schooler Hill Old Line, using the 1890 USGS Topo Map, contour maps, current satellite imagery, and Google Streetview imagery, and a few details from old Time Tables. Hopefully I can put all that information, including elevations, into an Excel spreadsheet which, of course, will be posted to the N&W List.

Just to whet your appetite, Hickman's Cut was a 350 foot cut around the side of a hill, and coordinates for the middle of the cut are approx 37.169731, -80.599250, elevation 1944'. Shufflebarger's Dip is a swag between two small hills the railroad crossed in its ascent up the west slope of Schooler Hill, the approximate middle of the Dip being at approx 37.1712785, -80.60330, elevation 1893'.

If you use the Globe View feature of the satellite view in Google Maps or Google Earth, the swag at Shufflebarger's is still visible. But to see Hickman's Cut, one must do a Streetview drive on the present roadway.

And, in step with that 1935 Magazine article you sent, I have spent the day with a genuine Telegraph sounder on my desk clicking out messages and articles being sent over the Internet Telegraph Wire which we now have. Tis music for my ear ! But as soon as I leave the room for a moment, Mrs. Boss sticks a pencil into my sounder and the clicking of Dots and Dashes suddenly comes to a hall! For shame ...

Thanks again, to you both, and to the ever generous Mr. Miller, who always throws gasoline on the smouldering embers of some hair-brained project which has caught my fancy.

-- abram burnett
Our Turnips Have Last Round Bolt Hold Open
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