City Lines - Norfolk Southern Tracks in Roanoke Virginia

My grandfather was an engineer for Norfolk and Western Railway. He started out as a fireman. I grew up hearing stories about heroic actions and... more

by Bonnie Mason

Title

City Lines - Norfolk Southern Tracks in Roanoke Virginia

Artist

Bonnie Mason

Medium

Painting - Oil On Canvas

Description

My grandfather was an engineer for Norfolk and Western Railway. He started out as a fireman. I grew up hearing stories about heroic actions and horrific train wrecks so I love hearing train songs because they always make me think of him. O. Winston Link took several photos of him on the 611 which are treasured by my family and now there is an O. Winston Link Museum in Roanoke. The Virginia Museum of Transportation is nearby and has wonderful train, auto and air exhibits.

Thanks so much to the administrators for featuring this painting in the following groups:

Non Photography...02/07/2021
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"City Lines" was among the Top 10 in the Contest - "Women Painter of the month - NOVEMBER 2018" !

Wikipedia says:

In the 1850s, Big Lick became a stop on the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad (V&T) which linked Lynchburg with Bristol on the Virginia-Tennessee border.

After the American Civil War (1861–1865), William Mahone, a civil engineer and hero of the Battle of the Crater, was the driving force in the linkage of three railroads, including the V&T, across the southern tier of Virginia to form the Atlantic, Mississippi & Ohio Railroad (AM&O), a new line extending from Norfolk to Bristol, Virginia in 1870. However, the Financial Panic of 1873 wrecked the AM&O's finances. After several years of operating under receiverships, Mahone's role as a railroad builder ended in 1881 when northern financial interests took control. At the foreclosure auction, the AM&O was purchased by E.W. Clark & Co., a private banking firm in Philadelphia which controlled the Shenandoah Valley Railroad then under construction up the valley from Hagerstown, Maryland. The AM&O was renamed Norfolk and Western Railway (N&W).


Frederick J. Kimball, a civil engineer and partner in the Clark firm, headed the new line and the new Shenandoah Valley Railroad. For the junction for the Shenandoah Valley and the Norfolk and Western roads, Kimball and his board of directors selected the small Virginia village called Big Lick, on the Roanoke River. Although the grateful citizens offered to rename their town "Kimball", at his suggestion, they agreed to name it Roanoke after the river. As the N&W brought people and jobs, the Town of Roanoke quickly became an independent city in 1884. In fact, Roanoke became a city so quickly that it earned the nickname "Magic City".

Kimball's interest in geology was instrumental in the development of the Pocahontas coalfields in western Virginia and West Virginia. He pushed N&W lines through the wilds of West Virginia, north to Columbus, Ohio and Cincinnati, Ohio, and south to Durham, North Carolina, and Winston-Salem, North Carolina. This gave the railroad the route structure it was to use for more than 60 years.

The Virginian Railway (VGN), an engineering marvel of its day, was conceived and built by William Nelson Page and Henry Huttleston Rogers. Following the Roanoke River, the VGN was built through the City of Roanoke early in the twentieth century. It merged with the N&W in 1959.

The opening of the coalfields made N&W prosperous and Pocahontas bituminous coal world-famous. Transported by the N&W and neighboring Virginian Railway (VGN), local coal fueled half the world's navies. Today it stokes steel mills and power plants all over the globe.

The Norfolk & Western was famous for manufacturing steam locomotives in-house. It was N&W's Roanoke Shops that made the company known industry-wide for its excellence in steam power. The Roanoke Shops, with its workforce of thousands, is where the famed classes A, J, and Y6 locomotives were designed, built, and maintained. New steam locomotives were built there until 1953, long after diesel-electric had emerged as the motive power of choice for most North American railroads. About 1960, N&W was the last major railroad in the United States to convert from steam to diesel power.

The presence of the railroad also made Roanoke attractive to manufacturers. American Viscose opened a large rayon plant in Southeast Roanoke in October 1917.[33] This plant closed in 1958, leaving 5,000 workers unemployed. When N&W converted to diesel, 2,000 railroad workers were laid off.

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All works featured are original art by Bonnie Mason. Prints may be purchased and simply rolled in a tube and shipped, or a large selection of frames and mats are available for you to create museum-quality masterpieces. Prints are also available as canvas prints, acrylic prints, metal prints, and even fine art greeting cards. All of our premium papers and canvases are acid-free and, with proper care, will last for generations. Each purchase comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. For any reason, if you are not happy with your purchase, simply return it within 30 days for a full refund of the purchase price.

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Uploaded

October 22nd, 2018