Golden Twilight of Postwar Steam, Part 5

As the 1950s wound down, a few isolated pockets of steam remained on major railroads, or steam power was in storage waiting a call to return to work – a call that did not come until additional diesels had arrived to rule out a last hurrah for steam. On the Norfolk & Western, things were different – very different. The N&W was a major railroad, operating big-time steam over its rail lines radiating out of Roanoke. Although diesels could be seen all over the railroad, the high iron was still dominated by the throaty sound of the steam whistle and the pulsating rumble of 12 or 16 drive wheels of steam giants, sometimes double-headed, pounding the railheads.

Steam was not stilled on the N&W until May 7, 1960. Fourteen months before this happened, Frank Schlegel made the first of four or five trips to Roanoke and West Virginia to film the final year of steam operations on the U.S.’s very last large steam railroad.