A Roanoke weekend, part 1.

E.M. Bell · February 20, 2011, 08:55:58 PM

Last weekend, Carmon and myself left home early Friday morning, headed for Roanoke. We planned to spend the day Friday shooting the NS between Bluefield and Roanoke, spend the bulk of the day Saturday visiting the Virginia Transportation Museum and the O.Winston Link Museum, and get some more NS action in around town. The weather was awesome for this time of the year, and NS provided more trains than we could keep up with. It had been several years since I had been to the area, and this little taste just makes me want to go back again. We even splurged and spent Two nights at the Hotel Roanoke ( built by the N&W), which was a nice change of pace from the chain hotels we usually stay at.

I have about half of the pictures from the weekend finished, and still have a ton to go. This first part is mainly NS stuff in the area, with action around Roanoke, mainline stuff between Welch and Roanoke, a lucky catch on the Tug Fork Branch, a few CPL's and night shots. I will get the to other stuff later on this week.

Thanks to everyone here at JREB who provided tips and information that made the trip a success!

Check the link for the first round of pics.. http://www.pbase.com/kd4jsl/nsvadiv11eb

A Westbound hopper train at Montgomery tunnel.

NS 217, downtown Roanoke

The N&W office building and CPL's at night

A local on the Tug Fork Branch at Black Wolf, WV

vsrr · February 21, 2011, 08:56:38 PM

Did you have a blue shirt on? I saw a railfan on the rail heritage webcam Saturday.....

Great pics...

Randy McKenzie

E.M. Bell · February 21, 2011, 09:10:01 PM

I did have a blue shirt on that day, although I dont think we where anywhere near the rail cams..I could be wrong though!

vsrr · February 21, 2011, 09:14:17 PM

I dont rem what time, but it was under the bridge, cameras around the neck. Near the propane tank, back and forth a few times.....

Just thought it was interesting to see a railfan, then I saw your post on trainorders. In fact thats how I found tis group....

My first day here, looks like a good find! I work near Wytheville on the Bristol line, MP 329 TSA.

Randy McKenzie

E.M. Bell · February 21, 2011, 09:55:02 PM

Its probably wasnt us then, the only place we shot at track level was way down by the East End Shops..

Glad to have you with us here, feel free to participate as much as you want...I think you will a good bunch folks!

Ed Fury · February 21, 2011, 11:15:38 PM

Really enjoy those extra pixels on your pbase. Waiting to see the rest.

E.M. Bell · February 22, 2011, 08:13:18 AM

Thanks Ed,

Carmon bought me a new monitor for Christmast that I had been wanting, and its supposed to be one of the best for photo process. That, plus the fact its big as my TV has let me expand my image size, and now the standard for a landscape orientation is around 1900 pixels wide, instead of 1024. With the old monitor I had, there was no way I could view the while image on the screen, which made processing in larger sizes a PITA.

Down at the bottom of each image on Pbase, there is an option to choose smaller sizes, if a person monitor is not big enough to support my increased sizes.

The one thing I have liked about this so far is the amount of detail the bigger ones have. I have a night shot of the NS office building taken last weekend, and in the big image, you can see a fellow sitting in a office on the top floor, feet on his desk, hands behind his head...I didnt even see that when we where there taking the pic!

Quote from: Ed Fury on February 21, 2011, 11:15:38 PM
Really enjoy those extra pixels on your pbase. Waiting to see the rest.

billworsham · February 22, 2011, 03:29:20 PM

The Roanoke railcam is actually on top of the glass pedestrian bridge on the Roanoke hotel side of it, facing south. Steve took a shot of it while we were up there last month.

Ptrainman · February 22, 2011, 07:57:23 PM

Love the pics, E.M.

vsrr · February 22, 2011, 10:38:31 PM

Actually there is two cameras in Roanoke:

The one near Hotel Roanoke and the second is a the rail heritage cam under 2nd street ( Commerce )

http://nwhs.org/cam/vmt/

http://128.173.197.94/railcamax.htm

billworsham · February 23, 2011, 06:25:57 AM

The one at the VMT seems to be a five-second feed while the Roanoke railcam is a continuous live feed.

E.M. Bell · February 26, 2011, 09:55:58 PM

I am still working on pics from the weekend, and Carmon still has hers to do as well, but I thought I would share a few more...this are railroady, but no trains.

The Hotel Roanoke was built by the N&W RR, and while no longer owned by the NS, it has just as much RR history as anything else in town. Check this link for a few shots...it was like stepping back in time..

http://www.pbase.com/kd4jsl/places

And I also finished up the rest of the night shots, including some stuff with the NS office building. We spent a good deal of time on Saturday night just walking around downtown shooting. The "art" display of ladders was most impressive... those are at this link.

http://www.pbase.com/kd4jsl/roanokeva