Roanoke Shops

Norfolk Southern Roanoke Shops in 2004.

The Roanoke Shops of the Norfolk and Western Railway (N&W) in Roanoke, Virginia were founded in 1881 as the Roanoke Machine Works. It came under the control of the railroad in 1883. Locomotive production started in 1884 and 152 locomotives were built until production ceased at the end of 1893. All had been for the Norfolk and Western Railway; they later absorbed RMW, which then became N&W's Roanoke Shops. Production re-started in 1900 and a further 295 locomotives (and 2 re-boilerings) were manufactured until production ceased in 1953 with the final S1a-class 244. It was the last steam locomotive manufactured in the United States for domestic use.

Before 1881, the "Magic City" of Roanoke had been the sleepy farming community of Big Lick and a small stop on the Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio Railroad (AM&O). All that changed when the owners of the Shenandoah Valley Railroad, building up the valley, purchased the AM&O, renamed it Norfolk and Western, and selected Big Lick as the new junction. The town grew rapidly as the new center of the combined railroads and changed its name, becoming a city in just a short time. The massive Roanoke Shops were built there and became the major employer in the Roanoke Valley for approximately 100 years.

At the Roanoke Shops, the N&W developed facilities and workers learned the skills needed to build its own steam locomotives in-house. During the 1930s, they employed over 6,000 workers, who were producing 4 steam locomotives and 20 freight cars each day. Products included locomotives of all sizes and of increasingly better technology, from switching engines to the famed streamlined J-class passenger locomotives, the huge articulated Y5 and Y6-classes for low speed coal drags, and the A-class for fast freight service. A total of 447 locomotives were manufactured at Roanoke during a 70 year time span.

After the end of steam motive power on the N&W in 1960, J-class 611 and A-class 1218 were used in excursion train service from the early 1980s until the early 1990s. They are now on display near their birthplace in a specially constructed pavilion at the Virginia Museum of Transportation in downtown Roanoke.