Trains – October 2019

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adjusted since, northbound U.S. 220 now
begins at an intersection with U.S. 1 in
Rockingham, N.C., a third of a mile from
the former Seaboard Air Line station that
serves as the county’s tourist information
center, and 5 miles from the famous
diamond junction and L-shaped station in
Hamlet. For its first 85 miles, U.S. 220 runs

through flat farm country, passing 35 miles

away from Spencer and its transportation

museum in the former Southern Railway

shops. Greensboro has two former South-

ern Railway stations. One, designed by

Fellheimer & Wagner, which later drew the

plans for Cincinnati Union Terminal,

underwent a complete restoration and

reopened to Amtrak passengers in 2005.

For the next hundred miles, U.S. 220

crosses a few other tracks but does not pass

any significant landmarks. When it reaches

the Blue Ridge foothills in Virginia, it

comes to one of the sacred places of Ameri-

can railroading: Roanoke, called by David P.

Morgan “the Alamo of Steam.” Between

TrainsMag.com 43

1 Norfolk Southern train 11V wraps around world-famous Horseshoe Curve west of Altoona, Pa., in October 2013. Samuel Phillips 2 Southern
Railway E and F units slumber in the Spencer roundhouse of the North Carolina Transportation Museum. Ron Flanary 3 Western Maryland
Scenic GP30 No. 501 emerges from the south portal of Brush Tunnel. Carlos Ferran 4 Lycoming Valley train LVR-1 with Reading-inspired GP35
No. 2011 arrives at Northumberland, Pa., under a unique signal arrangement in August 2018. Doug Koontz