Brief Visit to Roanoke

ssmith1627 · February 02, 2011, 12:12:17 AM

Billy Worsham and I drove up to Roanoke early Saturday. We stayed along the tracks for at least 12 hours, armed with radios, track charts and maps of the area posted on different websites by other railfans. Even with all that, Roanoke is daunting. So many lines in so many directions that it's very hard to get a mental image of what's happening around you. Despite a few hours of track work in town, we still saw about 20 trains and light engine movements. One could easily spend a week exploring that area though. We barely scratched the surface.

http://picasaweb.google.com/ssmith1627/RoanokeJan2011#

I got a stomach bug Saturday night so we saw very little on Sunday and had to head back to Knoxville. That was painful when there was so much else to see but not much I could do about it. Just have to find my way back up there some time.

Steve

billworsham · February 02, 2011, 07:23:54 AM

Yes, Roanoke can be a week-long vacation for railfans! Lots of radio chatter with all the different lines converging in downtown. You definitely have to live there to get a true feel for the lines on the radio.

I took about 15 videos or so. I will upload the best ones in days to come.

Ns Railfan · February 02, 2011, 07:54:18 AM

Great shots Steve, Roanoke is a must for railfans!

NS512869 · February 03, 2011, 08:19:41 PM

I have been to Roanoke several times. Always tried to find JK tower but never could. Where is it located and how many miles from Roanoke. Also wheres south yard?

E.M. Bell · February 03, 2011, 08:32:46 PM

Excellent work Steve..you prove the point that a railroady image don't have to have a train in it! I will try not to copy your ideas next weekend!

ssmith1627 · February 03, 2011, 10:36:31 PM

This is an excellent site that I found before our trip. Lots of good maps there and they point out just about everything within the city.

http://www.railroadsignals.us/virginia/roanoke/index.htm

Attached is a map of the rail lines so you can see what you're up against. Roanoke is no picnic. I really couldn't get much from the scanner because I didn't have a good feel for all the various points around town and what train ran on what line. The lines going west look like an awesome area to explore -- at least two tunnels. But they cross one another back and forth so even just for that when you're hearing trains it's hard to know which line they're on. Roanoke District runs north. Blue Ridge and Alta Vista districts run east -- Blue Ridge the more northerly of the two. Christiansburg District runs west with one line going to Bluefield WV and the other to Bristol (Pulaski District). The Winston Salem district runs south. But in Roanoke you also have the belt line and Roanoke terminal as well as north and south yards. If you can make sense of all that and know from the talk on the radio what is what -- you're a better man than I ! haha

JK Tower is right by the old Virginian depot. You can see how beautiful that depot used to be. Sad to see it like that. That overpass at Walnut is a good place to look down on both from the eastern edge of South Yard.

Steve

ssmith1627 · February 03, 2011, 10:43:24 PM

EM, thanks for the kind comments. I really like a few of the shots I got but I feel like I missed a thousand others. We were so rushed. I didn't make it to Starkey or to Natural Bridge. We didn't do the Link museum or the VA Transportation museum. I think you could spend a day at each of those. I really would love to have a week to explore Roanoke and all points surrounding it.

Steve

Fly Device · February 04, 2011, 08:27:39 AM

Quote from: ssmith1627 on February 03, 2011, 10:36:31 PM
But in Roanoke you also have the belt line and Roanoke terminal as well as north and south yards. If you can make sense of all that and know from the talk on the radio what is what -- you're a better man than I ! haha

Nice shots. A few tips for your future visits and also for E.M Bell's upcoming trip.

There's an impressive layout of Roanoke for ATCS Monitor. If you're a member of that group, get the kit and examine or print out the layout even if you don't plan to monitor while you're there. Shows many of the locations you'll hear referenced on the radio. If you don't have or want the software, I'll send you a screen shot of the layout.

Jeff Hawkins has some great PDF railfan guides covering basically every line in Virginia:

http://members.trainorders.com/varailfan/guides/index.html

Print out the guides for the six districts radiating from Roanoke (Christiansburg, Whitethorne, Roanoke, Blue Ridge, Altavista, Winston-Salem). Not only do they have all control points and intermediate signal names and mileposts, they list all of the regular train symbols and are pretty up-to-date.

Someone asked where South Yard is. A nice place to sit and watch it from your car is a new, free parking garage located in the northwest corner of South Jefferson St and Reserve Ave. It's probably 8 stories tall and sits right on the south side of the east end of the yard. You can also see JK from the garage. South Yard basically joins the Whitethorne and Altavista districts, and JK is where the Winston Salem district crosses the Altavista district right at the yard throat. AAR 15 (160.335 MHz) is a little-known channel often used by the "pull-back" crew that does switching in the South Yard.

The Belt Line itself is abandoned but "Belt Line" is still a signal on the Whitethorne district (where the Belt Line once crossed at a diamond) and you'll hear crews call it as they approach the South Yard. They frequently get held up here waiting on a free track in the yard.

Most of the talk on the terminal radio channel (AAR 76) pertains to the North Yard, and most of that in turn is the dispatcher talking crews between Motive Power and the yard track containing their train. You'll hear him say "permission by 30th street east on the westbound running track" or some variation of that all day long. That's the road crews (or hostler) moving their power in and out of Motive Power located near the Shaffer's Crossing shop at 24th St and Shenandoah. There are several other locations that the dispatcher has to talk the crews by all in the same general area.

There are several sub-yards in the North Yard. The Receiving Yard, also called "Big Hopper" is on the west end. The west yard car foreman is located I believe at the west end of this yard. The Empty Side Yard is also on the west end, parallels Big Hopper, but longer and fewer tracks. Just south of the Shaffer's Crossing shop and literally directly over 24th St is the hump. Trains out of Big Hopper are shoved east up the hump and the cars roll into the 56-track hump yard. The east end of the hump yard in turn feeds the Forwarding Yard. This is the yard whose east end is by the VMT.

"North Delivery" and "Warehouse" are locals that work the many industries within the terminal. They and some of the road locals often use a cab car. The Hostler can frequently be seen moving power between North and South Yards and turning power sets on the Wye located at Norfolk and Campbell Ave.

It took me a good while to be able to understand the place. It's a swarm of activity and it's obvious the road crews and terminal personnel are highly familiar with the layout and procedures.

If you have any more questions I can try to answer them. I'm not living in that part of the state anymore
so unfortunately I can't show you around in person.

E.M. Bell · February 04, 2011, 09:48:39 PM

I will ask a couple more questions here. My planned route from Ky will take us down through Beckley, and onto 81 around Christiansburg. I figure we will hit that area around 1300 or so and want to shoot between there and Roanoke. I remember a set of tunnels at Shawsville (I think) that is good for Westbounds..what other "must have" shots are around there?

In between visiting the museums on Saturday, I figure we will spend most of the day right in downtown, so what channel is best to listen to? Also, it "looks" like the best way to do downtown is on foot for the most part??

ssmith1627 · February 04, 2011, 10:29:24 PM

EM, for my 2 cents -- the tunnel at Montgomery would have good light for westbounds by 1pm. We were shooting at around 11am and the light was just moving onto it.

Downtown on foot would work well. There's street parking but also a lot right at the pedestrian bridge at Henry St. This was very convenient -- almost at the foot of the bridge on the south side of the tracks and just west. The lot is split -- half was pay and half was free on the weekends. There were very few cars in that lot -- we came and went at least 4 times last Saturday.

Walking along the tracks / sidewalks seems better on the north side. The rail walk is on the south side but you've got fencing all along there so good for seeing exhibits, not so good for taking pictures.

Hardly an overview for you but a couple tidbits anyway !

Steve

Ptrainman · February 04, 2011, 10:50:38 PM

E.M. Bell, as far as frequencies go you would want:
AAR 76-161.250- Roanoke Terminal Road & Yard Channel
AAR 72-161.190- Blue Ridge, Altavista, and Christiansburg Districts Road
AAR 44-160.440- Roanoke and Winston-Salem Districts Road
AAR 88-161.430- Roanoke Yard Switching 1 (I think this is the one used by the remote jobs, but I dont remember)
AAR 31-160.575- Roanoke Yard Channel
AAR 78-161.280- Roanoke Yard Switching 2

These are the freqs that I have found while in Roanoke. AAR 76 is the one most trains are on, inbounds get on this chanel about 2-3 miles out of town, so if you dont care about listening to the hump being switched or yard jobs working that is the channel I would stay on. At the east end of the forwarding yard there are normal a GP40-2 and 2 RP-E4D slugs working.

This is just what I know, so it may not be helpful, but I hope it is.

billworsham · February 05, 2011, 07:19:31 PM

Hey EM--If you go to Google maps for Roanoke, VA, zoom into downtown on the satellite view. Zoom in as far as you can. Look at the south side of the rails, you will see Norfolk Street. Look at the parking area between 2nd street overpass and the Henry Street pedestrian bridge. That is the area that you want to park in...but be careful. Half that lot is free all day parking, and the other half is pay to park. We parked in the free Roanoake parking which is the half lot farthest away from Henry street bridge and closest to 2nd street. You can enter the parking lot from Salem Avenue. Then you can walk as far and as long around the whole area on both sides of track as you can stand it.

The other place we parked is right under the glass enclosed pedestrian bridge between the Hotel Roanoke and the Wachovia Bank tower. You can park on the street there for free, but two hour parking only. Steve and I were parking here until we discovered the free all day park at Salem Street.

Hope this helps!

Ptrainman · February 05, 2011, 10:19:08 PM

Becareful, a portion of Salem Ave. is closed for road work. This can be bypassed on Norfolk Ave.

billworsham · February 08, 2011, 05:35:59 PM

Ok, gentlemen, now that I have the video upload issues and kinks worked out, I have started uploading the Roanoke videos. You can go here to view them (check for dates of upload for the past two or three days):

http://www.youtube.com/user/billyworsham267

If you'd like, you can subscribe to my youtube channel by clicking on subscribe (if you have a youtube account) to be notified of new videos.

wildweezel · February 13, 2011, 03:40:16 PM

Mr. Bell,

Hope the trip was great. Roanoke is an all around neat place. The Hotel Roanoke is one of my favorites, hope you tried the peanut soup!. Looks like you had tremendous weather.

Kevin

billworsham · February 14, 2011, 08:58:40 AM

The last of the videos of our trip to Roanoke have been uploaded:

NS 757 downtown Roanoke 1-29-11

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wmEptVIy_A

NS 15T Downtown Roanoke 1-29-11

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jj2fjR3rUCQ

NS 217 Downtown Roanoke 1-29-11

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es-6ZTZyZLw

NS 38Q downtown Roanoke 1-29-11

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEdZEz6eVG0

NS power move downtown Roanoke

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biim7w8M4os

NS power move downtown Roanoke 1-29-11

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRIERBMG_Nc

Whitethorne · February 15, 2011, 06:26:24 PM

Quote from: troy12n on February 15, 2011, 05:25:13 PM

RE: Montgomery tunnels:
Have they replaced the CPL's there yet? When I was there in October, the new signal bases were being unloaded right next to that MOW siding in front of the tunnels.

The CPL's at Montgomery have not been replaced yet. The signal bases are gone now.

The only signals that have been replaced recently on the Christiansburg District is the CP at Narrows.

Samuel Phillips

Whitethorne · February 16, 2011, 10:16:45 PM

Gotcha. I haven't been past Narrows since the 13th of November, so I didn't have a clue what was going on west of Narrows.

I've always wanted a pic of the "KV" and PD Junction signals, but it seems to be no easy access. You'd have to trespass to get in there. The westbound signal at Pearisburg has been replaced for a good while now.

There seems to be no evidence of any CPL replacements on Christiansburg Mountain anytime soon.

Troy, I don't see how I missed you this past fall while railfanning. There were a couple times we were both shooting the same trains just a few miles apart. I see your stuff on Railpictures and always enjoy it.

Whitethorne · February 18, 2011, 11:07:51 PM

I saw your uploads today. Very nice! I think I may head to Bluefield tomorrow. I still haven't managed to shoot a stack train yet out in Bluefield. I wrote a 12 page article on the Pulaski District for Railpace magazine and I haven't had much time till here lately to go anywhere else. I was spending most of my time shooting trains on the Pulaski District for the article.

billworsham · February 19, 2011, 08:38:59 PM

Thank you Samuel! I think my videography skills have improved since the Roanoke trip...I am currenlty uploading my vids from today's trip up the Appalachain District to Andover and Norton and back.

vsrr · February 21, 2011, 08:47:16 PM

Roanoke has several locations good for spending the day.

If your west and in the mood for some big power on the mainline, Vicker is a great choice. I always enjoy watching EB coal with pushers. They tack on the pushers at Whitethorn and head up grade to Christiansburg......

Randy Mckenzie

ssmith1627 · February 22, 2011, 06:01:35 PM

Troy, that tunnel picture is fantastic. I really like it. I've never gotten those guys to accept anything of mine and gave up a long time ago. But that doesn't take away from what you did with that picture. Good job !

Steve