Roanoke Shops
The Roanoke Shops (comprising the main East End Shops and the West Roanoke Yard and shops at Shaffers Crossing) is a railroad workshop and maintenance facility in
History
Before the locomotive shops were being built, Roanoke had been a quiet farming community of Big Lick and a small stop on the
In October 1881, the Roanoke Machine Works was founded, a set of shops that would grow to massive size and become the major employer in the Roanoke Valley for a century. The shops came under the control of the N&W in 1883, and the following year the shops began building locomotives.[2] Over the next nine years, the facility built 152 locomotives, all for the N&W, then suspended production. Antoine Sauter was one of its foremen.
Production resumed in 1900 at the facility, which had been renamed the Roanoke Shops in 1897.[3] Over the next 53 years, the shops built 295 locomotives (and re-boilered two more). From 1927 to 1952, the shops built every steam locomotive acquired by the N&W.[3]
During the 1930s, they employed over 6,000 workers, who were working on four steam locomotives and 20 freight cars on any given day. Products included locomotives of all sizes and of increasingly better technology, from switching engines to the famed streamlined
In December 1953, the Roanoke Shops built the class S-1a
After the N&W stopped using steam locomotives in May 1960, J-class No. 611 and A-class No. 1218 were used to pull excursion trains from the early 1980s until the early 1990s. No. 1218 is now on display near its birthplace in a specially constructed pavilion at the Virginia Museum of Transportation in downtown Roanoke. No. 611 has been restored to operating condition for excursion service again in 2015.[6] On May 18, 2020, Norfolk Southern abandoned the Roanoke Shops and moved all operations to the Juniata Locomotive Shops in Altoona, Pennsylvania.[7] In July 2023, Genesis Rail Services acquired the Roanoke Shops.[8]
References
- ^ a b c McKinney (2014), p. 7.
- ^ McKinney (2014), p. 9.
- ^ ISBN 9780939487974.
- ^ King (1998), p. 46.
- ^ McKinney (2014), p. 94.
- ^ "Norfolk & Western Class J 611 - official website". Virginia Museum of Transportation. Archived from the original on February 24, 2018. Retrieved April 7, 2018.
- ^ Hungate, David (May 18, 2020). "End of an era for Roanoke". The Roanoke Times. Archived from the original on May 19, 2020. Retrieved August 1, 2023.
- ^ Sturgeon, Jeff (July 16, 2023). "Rail services provider now based in Roanoke's East End Shops". The Roanoke Times. Archived from the original on July 18, 2023. Retrieved August 1, 2023.
Bibliography
- King, Ed (1998). Norfolk & Western in the Appalachians: From the Blue Ridge to the Big Sandy. The Golden Year of Railroading (1st ed.). Kalmbach Publishing. ISBN 0-89024-316-6.
- McKinney, Wayne (2014). Roanoke Locomotive Shops and the Norfolk & Western Railroad. Images of Rails (1st ed.). ISBN 978-1-4671-2111-8.
- Starr, Timothy (2024). The Back Shop Illustrated, Volume 3: Southeast and Western Regions. Privately printed.