Established | April 1986 |
---|---|
Location | Roanoke, Virginia |
Coordinates | 37°16′23″N79°56′50″W / 37.272943°N 79.947231°W |
Type | Transport museum |
Website | Official website |
Norfolk and Western Railway Freight Station | |
Location | 303 Norfolk Ave, Roanoke, Virginia |
Coordinates | 37°16′23″N79°56′46″W / 37.27306°N 79.94611°W |
Area | 57.7 acres (23.4 ha) |
Built | c. 1918 |
Built by | Norfolk and Western Railway |
NRHP reference No. | 12000969 [1] |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | November 21, 2012 |
Designated VLR | September 20, 2012 [2] |
The Virginia Museum of Transportation (VMT) is a museum in Downtown Roanoke, Virginia, that is devoted to the topic of transportation.
The Virginia Museum of Transportation began in 1963 as the Roanoke Transportation Museum in Wasena Park in Roanoke, Virginia. The museum was initially housed in an old Norfolk & Western Railway freight depot on the banks of the Roanoke River. The earliest components of the museum's collection included a United States Army Jupiter rocket and the J class steam locomotive No. 611, donated by Norfolk & Western to the city of Roanoke, where many of its engines were built. The museum added other pieces of rail equipment, including a DC Transit PCC streetcar; and a number of horse-drawn vehicles, including a hearse, a covered wagon, and a Studebaker wagon.
In November 1985, a flood damaged the museum and much of its collection. [3] In April 1986, the museum was re-opened at the former Norfolk & Western Railway Freight Station in downtown Roanoke as the Virginia Museum of Transportation, recognized by the General Assembly of Virginia as the Commonwealth's official transportation museum.
Under the museum's original charter, Norfolk & Western steam locomotives No. 611 and No. 1218 were property of the city of Roanoke. On April 2, 2012, during VMT's 50 Birthday, the city transferred ownership of the locomotives to the museum. [4]
The Norfolk & Western Railway Freight Station was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012. [1] The station consists of two clearly identifiable sections, both of which were completed in 1918. They are the two-story, 50-bay freight station which was built parallel to the railroad tracks and now is oriented south, and the one-story-with-basement brick annex that formerly housed the offices of the Shenandoah and Radford divisions of the Norfolk & Western. The building closed for railroad freight business in 1964. [5]
Many of the museum's antique automobiles are on display here. The museum also features occasional special exhibits such as the Hollywood Star Cars exhibit of cars from television and movies. [6]
Ongoing exhibits cover sundry aspects of railroad life in America, especially Virginia:
The museum maintains an O scale train layout modeled after Roanoke, Salem, and Lynchburg, Virginia.
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From January 20 to May 3, 2011, the museum was home to Chesapeake and Ohio 614 as part of the museum's Thoroughbreds of Steam exhibit.
Other pieces include automobiles such as a 1913 Metz, a 1920 Buick touring car, a Highway Post Office Bus, and an armored car used to showcase the United States Bill of Rights in 1991.
The collection includes more than 50 pieces of rolling stock. Some may be closed to the public for restoration, and some in need of heavy restoration are stored offsite in yards managed by Norfolk Southern.
After a storm in 2006, the aviation gallery was rebuilt into a collection of interviews and first hand collections, including:
The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States. Headquartered in Atlanta, the company was formed in 1982 with the merger of the Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. The company operates 19,420 route miles (31,250 km) in 22 eastern states, the District of Columbia, and has rights in Canada over the Albany to Montreal route of the Canadian Pacific Kansas City. Norfolk Southern Railway is the leading subsidiary of the Norfolk Southern Corporation.
The Virginian Railway was a Class I railroad located in Virginia and West Virginia in the United States. The VGN was created to transport high quality "smokeless" bituminous coal from southern West Virginia to port at Hampton Roads.
The California State Railroad Museum is a museum in the California State Parks system that interprets the role of railroads in the West. It is located in Old Sacramento State Historic Park at 111 I Street, Sacramento, California.
The Norfolk and Western Railway, commonly called the N&W, was a US class I railroad, formed by more than 200 railroad mergers between 1838 and 1982. It was headquartered in Roanoke, Virginia, for most of its existence. Its motto was "Precision Transportation"; it had a variety of nicknames, including "King Coal" and "British Railway of America". In 1986, N&W merged with Southern Railway to form today's Norfolk Southern Railway.
William Graham Claytor Jr. was an American attorney, United States Navy officer, and railroad, transportation and defense administrator for the United States government, working under the administrations of three US presidents.
Robert Buckner Claytor was an American railroad administrator. He became President of the Norfolk and Western Railway in 1981 and was instrumental in the merger of the Southern Railway and the Norfolk & Western in 1982. He was the first chairman and CEO of the new Norfolk Southern, and is credited with locating the headquarters of the Fortune 500 company in Norfolk, Virginia, within sight of the massive coal pier at Lambert's Point on the Elizabeth River at Hampton Roads.
The Roanoke Shops is a railroad workshop and maintenance facility in Roanoke, Virginia. Between 1884 and 1953, the shops produced 447 steam locomotives, all for the Norfolk and Western Railway (N&W). The Roanoke Shops built the N&W's famous Big Three class steam locomotives; the 4-8-4 class J, the 2-6-6-4 class A, and the 2-8-8-2 class Y6. In late 1953, the Shops built their final steam locomotive, making it last standard gauge steam locomotive built for revenue service in the United States. In 2020, N&W's successor, Norfolk Southern abandoned the Shops and Genesis Rail Services acquired the property in July 2023.
The North Carolina Transportation Museum is a museum in Spencer, North Carolina. It is a collection of automobiles, aircraft, and railway vehicles. The museum is located at the former Southern Railway's 1896-era Spencer Shops and devotes much of its space to the state's railroad history. The museum has the largest collection of rail relics in the Carolinas. Its Back Shop building of nearly three stories high is notable for its size, two football fields long.
Southern Railway 4501 is a preserved Ms class 2-8-2 "Mikado" type steam locomotive built in October 1911 by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as the first of its wheel arrangement type for the Southern Railway (SOU). In 1948, the locomotive was retired from the Southern Railway in favor of dieselization and was subsequently sold to the shortline Kentucky and Tennessee Railway (K&T) in Stearns, Kentucky, to haul coal trains.
The Pocahontas was one of the named passenger trains of the Norfolk and Western Railway. It ran overnight between Norfolk, Virginia, and Cincinnati, Ohio, with a through-car to and from Chicago, Illinois. The Pocahontas ran from November 1926 until May 1971.
The Powhatan Arrow was a named luxurious passenger train, operated by the Norfolk and Western Railway (N&W) in the United States. It made its inaugural operation on April 28, 1946, with two trains; Nos. 25 and 26, which both ran 676 miles (1,088 km) daily at daylight on the N&W mainline between Norfolk, Virginia, and Cincinnati, Ohio in opposite directions. It takes about 15 hours and 45 minutes for both trains to run per day. They were hauled behind N&W's streamlined 4-8-4 class J steam locomotives.
The Norfolk and Western J class was a class of 14 4-8-4 "Northern" streamlined steam locomotives built by the Norfolk and Western Railway (N&W) at its Roanoke Shops in Roanoke, Virginia, between 1941 and 1950. The most powerful 4-8-4 locomotives ever produced, the J class were part of the N&W's "Big Three" that represented the pinnacle of steam technology.
Norfolk and Western 475 is a 4-8-0 "Twelve-wheeler" type steam locomotive built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in June 1906 as part of the Norfolk and Western Railway's (N&W) first order of M class numbered 375–499. It was first assigned to haul freight trains on the N&W mainline before being reassigned to branch line duties on the Blacksburg Branch in the 1920s.
Norfolk and Western 1218 is a preserved four-cylinder simple articulated 2-6-6-4 steam locomotive, built in June 1943 by the Norfolk and Western's (N&W) Roanoke Shops in Roanoke, Virginia as part of the N&W's class "A" fleet of fast freight locomotives. It was retired from regular revenue service in July 1959, and was later restored by Norfolk Southern for excursion service for their steam program, pulling excursions throughout the eastern United States from 1987 to 1991. It is currently on display at the Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke, Virginia.
Norfolk and Western 2156 is a preserved Y6a class 2-8-8-2 compound Mallet steam locomotive. The Norfolk and Western Railway (N&W) built it in 1942 at its own Shops in Roanoke, Virginia as the second member of the N&W's Y6a class. No. 2156 and its class are considered to be the world's strongest-pulling extant steam locomotive to ever be built.
Norfolk and Western 611, also known as the "Spirit of Roanoke" and the "Queen of Steam", is the only surviving example of Norfolk and Western's (N&W) class J 4-8-4 type "Northern" streamlined steam locomotives. Built in May 1950 at N&W's Roanoke Shops in Roanoke, Virginia, it was one of the last mainline passenger steam locomotives built in the United States and represents one of the pinnacles of American steam locomotive technology.
The 21st Century Steam program was conducted by the Norfolk Southern Railway from 2011 to 2015, featuring four classic steam locomotives pulling passenger excursions along Norfolk Southern rails in the eastern United States. The last train was to be Southern 4501's Piedmont Limited excursion trip from Atlanta, Georgia, to Toccoa, Georgia, but cancelled on October 1 due to Hurricane Joaquin.
Nickel Plate Road No. 763 is a class "S-2" 2-8-4 "Berkshire" type steam locomotive. It was built in August 1944 by the Lima Locomotive Works in Lima, Ohio, as the ninth engine of its class. It is a high powered fast freight locomotive that carried perishables between Chicago and Buffalo, New York.
The Cedar train wreck occurred on the night of January 23, 1956, when the Norfolk and Western (N&W) Pocahontas passenger train derailed at more than 50 mph (80 km/h) along the Tug River near Cedar, West Virginia. The accident killed the engineer and injured 51 passengers and nine crew members. It was the last major wreck of a steam-powered revenue passenger train in the United States.
The Great Dismal Swamp train derailment occurred on the afternoon of May 18, 1986, when a special Norfolk Southern employee passenger train derailed at the Great Dismal Swamp near Suffolk, Virginia. The accident injured 177 passengers; 18 were seriously injured and need to be airlifted to nearby hospitals in Norfolk, Virginia. The train was pulled by Norfolk and Western 611, a class J 4-8-4 steam locomotive, which was restored to operating condition for excursion service in 1982.