Lecture topic:: ‘Final Years of Steam’

Ken Miller, author and historian for the Norfolk and Western Historical Society in Roanoke, will open the fall Kegley Lectures season Sept. 24 . He will  speak on the last five years of  the steam train, which inspired the photography of O. Winston Link.

At the beginning of January 1955, the Norfolk and Western proclaimed on note pads that it was “Operated 100% by coal-burning steam locomotives.”
The Norfolk and Western had operated for almost 80 years using its primary commodity as its main power source, up to and including building and designing its own locomotives in Roanoke. The company felt switching from coal to oil would be somewhat of an insult to all those coal companies whose product they were hauling.

By May 1955, N&W ordered its first diesel locomotive to handle traffic on the lightly trafficked line between Lynchburg,Va., and Durham, N.C.
With some backroom politics also in the mix, this was the toehold for diesels that rapidly pushed N&W steam to the scrapyards by May 10, 1960.

Miller grew up in Salem. His father, Elbert, spent 34 years as an N&W Radford Division conductor. Ken’s exposure to the N&W has been a long-term association, beginning with his first steam locomotive cab ride at just over 15 months old on the Catawba Branch at Salem.

He is a 48-year member of the Roanoke Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society, where he was very involved in many steam excursions during the 1980s and 1990s.

The lecture is at 7 p.m. at Christ Lutheran Church on Grandin Road in southwest Roanoke.   Admission is $5 for non-members of HSWV; members attend for free.