Published: November 05, 2009 03:42 pm      

All aboard! Roll out the red carpet for visitors

The city of Bluefield will play host Saturday to a group of about 850 visitors who will be arriving in Nature’s Air-Conditioned City on the Roanoke, Va., to Bluefield Amtrak excursion train.

It’s the first time in about 12 years that city officials have welcomed such a rail excursion to Bluefield. The Roanoke Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society is sponsoring the excursion.

Several downtown restaurants and art galleries have special events planned for the day, and the Craft Memorial Library will have an exhibit of rare documents and photographs related to Bluefield and the Norfolk & Western Railway’s intertwined history.

We welcome this long overdue rail excursion, and encourage area citizens and businesses to help roll-out the red carpet Saturday morning for our visitors. The train is due to arrive in Bluefield around 11:30 a.m. Saturday morning.

The rail excursion is an ideal opportunity to showcase our region to out-of-state visitors, and should provide a welcomed one-day tourism and economic development boost to our downtown businesses and attractions.

It’s only fitting to have such a rail excursion in a city like Bluefield. Bluefield, after all, was built to serve the N&W Railroad, according to Dr. C. Stuart McGehee, a local coalfield historian and director of the Eastern Regional Coal Archives at Bluefield’s Craft Memorial Library.

When the engineers determined that the place they called Higginbotham’s Summit was the highest point on the railroad from Norfolk to Cincinnati, McGehee said the railroad decided to locate its shops here.

Saturday’s excursion harkens back to the glory days of passenger service in Bluefield. Back in the day, it wasn’t uncommon for as many as a dozen passenger trains to arrive in the city each day. At the time, Bluefield was home to many companies that supplied the needs of 100 or so coal mines operating in the region, according to McGehee.

We applaud NS and city officials for making this long-awaited rail excursion possible.

We urge officials, area businesses and city residents to extend a warm welcome to our visitors.

If this rail excursion is a success, and our guests depart with a positive first impression of Bluefield, it is possible that additional rail excursions will follow.

The rail excursion is a win-win for Bluefield and all who call it home.