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Norfolk and Western Railway Company North Carolina Branch By Munsey Webb N&W
Norfolk and Western Railway Company North Carolina Banch By Munsey Webb N&W
Soft Cover
Book #1266 of 1800. LIMITED first edtion, SIGNED
Copyright 1995
CONTENTS
Prefacevi
Rails 1
Pulaski 2
Draper14
Delton15
Hiwassee16
Allisonia17
Allisonia Branch22
Reed Island Junction25
Reed Island Branch27
Kayoulah33
Barren Springs 36
Lone Ash40
Foster Falls42
Hematite44
Jackson's Ferry47
Austinville50
Ivanhoe55
Speedwell Branch64
Byllesby 67
Grayson69
Fries Junction72
Fries79
Chestnut Yard82
Cliffview85
Galax87
Miscellaneous Railroad Information101
Preface
My entire life has been influenced by the railroad. Prior to my birth, my parents, Bessie J. Montgomery and Kennard M. Webb, traveled and courted by railroad. When my parents were married in 1915, they moved into a one hundred and fifteen year old log house facing a narrow gauge tram, railroad track which was operated by the Virginia Iron, Coal and Coke Company. In that house, located approximately two miles up Big Reed Island Creek from Allisonia, I was born on February 16, 1927 and was named after G. Munsey Fisher, the local railway agent from the Allisonia depot.
When I entered grade school at Allisonia, my school was located near the Norfolk and Western Railroad tracks. As a student there, I talked to the train crews every chance I had. The telegraph at the local station was always fascinating to me; so I would hang around the station to watch and listen until Mr. John Fleenor, the railroad agent, would run me off.
By the time I was twelve years old, I was catching and selling fish to the railroad crew for spending money. I discovered that if I could arrive at the Reed Island Junction before the Betty Baker Train from the Sylvatus branch received clearance for the main line track, I could hold up my string of catfish and sell them to the train crew. The crew would then place their fish into the water tender, a water tank on wheels behind the steam engine, and arrive at Pulaski with live fish in the locomotive water tender.
After completing my schooling and a hitch in the army, I decided to brush up on the Morse Code skills that I had learned in the military, train with G. Munsey Fisher, the railroad agent for whom I was named, and pursue a career with the railroad.
In April, 1948, I was employed by the Norfolk and Western Railway Company, and my first regular job was at my hometown station of Allisonia as a station agent and telegraph operator.
The most interesting person I met while working at the Allisonia depot was Hazel M. Farmer, who arrived at the station in an irate mood to claim her "delayed" furniture which was a college graduation gift from her parents. To make an old railroad story short, on November 24, 1949, we were married at her home at Patterson Junction.
Most of our family vacations were centered around railroad trips to the seashore and other regions of the United States. When our daughter, Margo Webb, was born on March 31, 1956, she was included in the train trips. For the first few years of her life, she slept on a pillow in the luggage compartment of our railroad coach. Later we shared berths, compartments, and bedrooms.
During my employment with the Norfolk and Western Railway, I worked at the Allisonia, Pulaski, Galax, Ivanhoe, Foster Falls, Ivanhoe, Galax, and Salem stations in that order.
On September 5, 1951, while working at the Galax depot as operator clerk/assistant agent. I sold the last ticket on the last passenger train on the North Carolina branch to a lady traveling to Gambetta. I rode to Austinville on my railroad pass.
In 1972, I decided to leave the N&W Railway Company and open a wholesale furniture business. My business was located at the Norfolk and Western station in Galax and was known as Munsey's Furniture Company, Incorporated.
When the Galax freight train made its final run on October 15, 1985, I was on board. Enroute to Radford, I decided not to let the history of the North Carolina Branch of the railroad from Pulaski to Galax go by the wayside.
After hundreds of hours of research through out-of-print and rare books, pamphlets and family collections, telephone contacts, personal interviews and letters and accumulated mileage on my vehicle, this publication is the best I can produce with the support of my wife Hazel F. Webb.
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