Here is another of my dad’s photos to share… Train #25 “The Powhatan Arrow” making its Roanoke stop in August of 1952.
http://knox.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1240688
Thanks for looking and corrections are always welcome.
Charles Freericks
Thanks! And congratulations on getting that one posted. One can almost hear the exhaust of the air pump…
That appears to be a Roanoke City police officer seated in the chair below the stairs. That would have been a triangle-shaped shoulder patch in those days. We still had the grey shirts with a primarily grey shoulder-patch when I started in 1976, and it was still the requirement then that police officers always wore their hat when out in public. Roanoke moved to a dark blue shirt in about 1980. The Hotel Roanoke, located across the street from the station, drew a fine class of patron (and still does), and the rationalle of posting an officer at the crossing was to insure that the Hotel patrons were not troubled by any nere-do-wells if they went across the tracks into downtown.
Bill
Wow, that one has a very “real” feel to it. The car in the foreground, the officer watching over things, the people around the locomotive. I think sometimes we as photographers are too busy trying to get “uncluttered” shots of locomotives that we forget that railroading is an integral part of the environments they operate in. Sometimes it’s fun to see the other happenings around the railroad.
Another great shot from your dad’s collection, Charles. Thanks for sharing!
Wow - the details! The gates, the bell on the pole behind the stairs, the CPLs in the distance (showing stop). A true gem. Was the police officer there to operate the gates?
This could almost be used as accompaniment to an editorial piece about how the automobile replaced the passenger train.
It just has a gritty feel about it - very appropriate.
I’m hoping Quentin will tell us what kind of car that is.
The weather looks awful dreary that day. Thanks for posting.
Charles,
Would you mind if i post a link to the N&WHS board?
Jimmy
Jimmy… not at all… I’d be flattered. Please feel free to post a link to it. Charles
PS - As to the weather, other pics aren’t as grey. It’s likely my dad was aiming his camera towards the sun on a hazy, clouds in and out day, I"m guessing. Hard to tell with this quailty of image.
…Wow…Not much to go on. I will say when I first pulled up that photo, my first impulse was…The car: 1940 Chrysler…But can’t say with any certainty. I thought the front fender resembled one, but that was just my first impulse. I do enjoy seeing the “old” autos in your photos and trying to identifly them.
That is a great shot…my favorite of yours so far.
Keep on scanning!
ed
I don’t remember any of the “old timer” police officers having said anything about operating the Jefferson Street crossing gates… just standing post there to make sure the folks from the hotel weren’t accosted. I doubt the City would want the liability if the officer had to go down the street a half block to deal with a disorder and a crash ensued because the gates weren’t down. Remember that back in the time of the photo, officers didn’t have portable radios, but relied on telephone call boxes. As I think I mentioned in the other post, the street crossing was removed and an “underpass” installed to allow pedestrian traffic. As a young police officer I still drew the assignment of standing post at the underpass in the evening hours. Woe to you if you were not visible when the Sergeant came driving by - regardless of how cold or windy it was. That assignment was just in the evening hours starting at dark, and was shared by the other downtown foot beat officers. My fellow officers would often arrange to arrest a drunk or something just before their time at the underpass… but as a railfan I thought it was a great way to make money - stand at the throat of N&W operations and get paid for it.
Now there is a new pedestrian overpass from the hotel to downtown with video surveillance - but the police department still generally follows a “zero tolerance” approach on any violations in that walkway.
Bill
First, in my dad’s stead, thank you all for the kind comments.
Second, Quentin, you’re amazing… I went and looked at 1940 Chryslers on the net… and I’d be willing to bet much money you hit it on the head.
Third, Bill, your stories about Roanoke are fantastic… the kind of thing that makes all the work to edit and post really worth it… a history lesson and a fascinating look into Roanoke. Thank you so much for them.
The car may be a 1940 Hudson. Check the windshield angle and the roofline. It peaks earlier and trails off less than a Chrysler. I’m not sure of this (before my time, anyway) but it’s a possibility. And yes, it’s a great period photo!!
Wow… they are similar. You may be correct.
…You fellows peaked my interest a bit farther and I too went and compared photos of the two…Hudson and Chrysler…Believe I’ll stick with my original thought…A Chrysler…but as I said before, we can’t be very sure with the evidence so blurred from it’s movement.
A bit of trivia: Have a memory and picture still recorded in my mind of a vision back in our little home town in the 30’s. Rt. 30 was our main street…{in Pennsylvania}, and a popular restaurant in the center of town pulled in traveling folks off the thru highway. Can still see two 1938 Oldsmobiles curbside, one pulling the other…brand new…traveling thru to some dealer. Some cars were driven to dealers like that back then. This very possibly was in the Fall of 1937 because the new route 30 bypass was being built in '37 and not opened until 1938, so traffic was still coming through town.
It is an excellent picture.
From what I see she is without question the queen of the rails on that day.
PL
No, there was a crossing tender for that. There was a tower there that can be see in other pictures of the area. There was also one at the next crossing west, Commerce St. or 2nd St. ( which is now an overpass ).
Charles,
I am passing this on for consideration.
Initial thoughts from the N&W group are leery of which trains these are. There is a question of the Pocahontas having so many head end cars and the Arrow having head end cars at all. Also there were no 1946 passenger cars. The new Arrow cars arrived in 1949 and would have been in use. So possibly the east bound train is more likely to be the Tennessean?
If you look at both of your photos, you will notice that they are both on Track 1. My thought is, if the times you ( Arrow ) and Bill ( Pocahontas ) have noted are correct, then I would think that the timing is too close for the Pocahontas & Arrow to be on the same track, especially if the Arrow was running early.
Jim,
I appreciate it. I would much rather have it right than wrong. I will take a look at this in more detail tonight.
I do have a shot that is 100% the Powhatan Arrow, as it is the rear of the train and can’t be anything else, coming out of track one from that same day. I’ll put it up too. Maybe that will solve the mystery for sure (one way or another).
I’m wondering if those are head end cars on what’s ID’d as the Arrow or are they reflections form the shed on streamlined cars?
Charles
JIM IS RIGHT…
I went back to the pictures in total from that day. There are THREE different westbounds on track 1 and an eastbound in the pictures.
Two of the eastbounds have Js in the lead, and this was the confusion for sure. The other one is clearly the Powhatan Arrow. I’ll get a timetable to now figure it all out, and get Jim’s help, but what is for sure is that this is a different train.
I’ve been assuming my dad put the pictures in order… but he clearly didn’t. They are obviously randomly placed… which is so unlike my dad… but he was 17 when he took these, so he wasn’t the organized grown man I knew yet.
MORE TO FOLLOW>
Westbound with J number one (not pictured) was #25 “Powhatan Arrow”
Westbound with J number two (the one in the picture) was #45 “The Tennessean”
Eastbound with J was #46 “The Tenessean”
The other westbound on the track has a standard engine on it (maybe even an 0-8-0) so it may not be a through train at all, or maybe it’s something that I don’t have in my Official Guide. There’s an image of what could be the same engine with a train on the next track over too, so it could have just been shunting cars (but would passenger cars be shunted at Roanoke?"