This
recent Thanksgiving holiday was quite busy for me. In addition to spending time with friends and
family for the traditional dinner, I also took a trip back to my alma mater,
Virginia Tech, to attend the big football against the University of
Virginia. If you are not familiar with
these colleges, they are big rivals. If
you are not familiar with college football, Virginia Tech has beaten UVA in the
big rivalry game for the past ten years.
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| Normally on our trips I’m the one
who finds museums to visit. However, on
our trip home my husband took us to the Virginia Museum of Transportation in
Roanoke, Virginia. This building was
formerly the Norfolk and Western Freight Station, so even though the museum
deals with many forms of transportation, it has a lot of trains. For a rail fan and former train dispatcher
like my husband, it is a wonderful place to spend an afternoon! |
Once
inside, we headed to the showing of a short movie about the 611 steam
locomotive, and a presentation by a very informative and animated docent. Afterwards, my husband and the docent, who
turned out to be a former train conductor, started talking and comparing past
train careers. I was eager to see the
exhibits, so I wandered away to the galleries.
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| The largest “gallery” is the
outdoor display of train engines and cars.
You could easily spend the entire time looking through everything on
display out here! |
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| Storing large artifacts, like
this train car, outside presents some challenges which I am glad I don’t have
to deal with at my museum! |
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| It’s not all trains though. There are many other modes of transportation
on display. |
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| Back inside the museum, I found a display which compared pistons from various engines. |
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| I also found that the automobile
section was pretty popular. |
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| Back to the Future, anyone?! |
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| Look what else I
found – a robotic car built by Virginia Tech students! In November
2007, this self-driving car called Odin placed third in a 60 mile Urban
Challenge race. According to the label, computers control Odin's
throttle, brake, steering, and shifting while relying on input from
cameras, laser sensors, and a GPS system. |
I wanted
to show my husband the robotic car, so I hurried back to where I had left him,
expecting to find him still discussing trains.
Instead, he found me and excitedly told me that he’d just gotten a
behind-the-scenes tour of some train items.
A behind-the-scenes tour – and I love getting to see the artifacts that aren't out on display. I’d missed it; guess I shouldn’t have left.
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| This is one item I didn’t get
to see in person, an old US&S CTC machine used in dispatching trains. Notice that this one controlled the trains
which ran through Antietam – not far from the Pry House Field Hospital Museum! |
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| In addition to the full-sized
trains, there is a large model train display.
I liked that they placed some viewing windows down low for the kids. |
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| In fact, many of the displays were
good for kids (and Hokie fans) of all ages! |
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| In the aviation section, I finally
found a Civil War connection – a model of the gas balloon, or aerostat, Enterprise. |
The
Enterprise was built by Thaddeus Lowe, and was part of Lowe's plan for a
transatlantic flight. In April of 1861, he
took it on a test flight from Cincinnati, bound for Washington D.C. He instead landed in Unionville, South
Carolina, where he was promptly captured and accused of being a Union spy! He was ultimately able to convince his
captors that he was on a scientific mission, and was released and sent
home. He then offered the use of his
balloons for reconnaissance to the Union Army.
The Enterprise was used to observe the Battle of First Bull Run, and
paved the way for the use of balloons in the Civil War.
You never
know what kinds of connections you will find when visiting different
museums. Just don’t wander away from
your group or you might miss something!
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