WILLIAMSON
LEFT: Link’s last night photo of Norfolk & Western steam was taken inside Mingo Tunnel at Williamson,
W.Va., in March 1960. BELOW: A Norfolk Southern freight prowls the inside of Mingo Tunnel.
ed passing in the background. The pool is still in use by the children of the town (they would be the grandchildren of the ones in the picture); however, it is well hidden on a service road out of a park- ing lot behind a downtown building. West of Welch is Iaeger, where Link snapped the couple in the convertible enjoying both the 1955 movie Battle Taxi and an eastbound hotshot at the Starview Drive-In (what a clever name for an outdoor theater). The theater was still in place in 1990, when a British film crew visited for a documen- tary special, Trains That Passed in the Night, but the site has since been cleared and a new home has been built there. The location is east of town just off the highway and over the Elkhorn Creek bridge. We
finally arrive in historic HAWKSBILL CREEK
BELOW LEFT: A newer highway bridge has replaced the one in the Link photo. BELOW RIGHT: “Hawksbill Creek Swimming Hole, Luray, Virginia,” August 9, 1956 (NW1126).
Williamson, last
where Link took his
steam
photo: a Y6 work- ing through the curved, two-track Mingo Tunnel. The main line
tunnel at the west end of town is still in place, but it’s a challenge to find and to photograph. Take your photos from the outside, where you find plenty of park- ing and a safe, clear shot of the east portal. Likewise, there are many Link sites that can be sought out and ex- plored in Virginia and West Virginia. In my personal exploration, I have found 18 of them. There are more! The adventure continues . . .
One last example: the memorable shot of the young couple in the convert-
ible and old gent filling their tank from an old gravity-type gas pump, with a steam locomotive rolling by in the back- ground. The little store where the shot was made survives at trackside in Vesuvius, Va., but it is abandoned. The couple in the convertible got married soon after the photo was made and lived happily ever after. And the old gasoline pump has been resceued and restored! It’s on display alongside the photos that made it famous at the O. Winston Link Museum in Roanoke.
44 MAY 2012 •
RAILFAN.COM
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