Fare Twenty Cents From Roanoke – One Car Ran Over Track Early To Avoid Legal Entanglement
From the 1938 centennial edition of The Times-Register
Some of the older residents of this county can remember when the dummy steam engine pulled a couple of cars between Roanoke and Salem. That was in 1891 and the establishment of this service was at about the time that Roanoke was putting on the streets their mule-drawn street cars.
When Roanoke secured a charter to operate mule drawn street cars the company almost lost their charter because of the fact that this charter provided that the cars should be in operation by a certain date but while the track was ready the cars were not. In order to comply with the terms of the charter the company pressed into service the dummy steam engine and made one trip over the tracks in order to project the charter. Some difficulty was encountered in making the little stream engine stay on the track but it cleared up the technical point that threatened to prevent them from operating mule drawn street cars.
It was soon after this event that the dummy steam line was placed on regular schedule between Roanoke and Salem. A similar line was in operation between Roanoke and Salem. A similar line was in operation between Roanoke and Vinton, the Vinton line being put in operation a couple of months before the line to Salem got started.
These little engines pulled two cars as a rule and the line had one car which was a combination passenger and package car. An engineer, fireman and conductor was necessary for the dummy line.
The Route To Salem
In coming out of Roanoke the dummy line extended up Second street, S.W. to West Fifth street and thence to Third avenue, up to Eleventh street and to Orange avenue. From there it went out by way of Horton’s race track to Washington Heights and to Salem.
“Cherry Tree Station” was the name of the station at the city limits and passengers could ride to this point for five cents. At that time quite a bit of development was in progress about Washington Heights as the boom was on and certain promoters who also had an interest in the line were endeavoring to build a town at Washington Heights. A skating rink and dance pavilion were located there.
To that point from Roanoke the fare was ten cents. The next stop was at Peters Creek and the fare to that point from Roanoke was fifteen cents. The next stop was Coyner’s Springs or Mason’s Creek as it was sometimes called and the care to that point was twenty cents.
It was not until 1892 that electrically operated street cars came into use in Salem and soon after that the line to Salem was electrified.
– Prepared by Lingjie Gu
