Published: March 14, 2009 07:27 pm      

Past, future meet at aging bridge

BLUEFIELD — Few Bluefielders can still remember a time when the only way into the J.B. Belcher Lumber Company camp within the city limits was only accessible by an old, steel bridge that spans the Norfolk Southern Railway yard at Hardy Street to connect Princeton Avenue in the city’s East End with East Wayne Street on the North Side, but it remains as an unresolved obstacle along the path of a multi-million dollar, private-public partnership that NS calls, the Heartland Corridor.

“We will have to raise or remove it,” NS spokesman Robin Chapman said last week. “I am not sure at this point which that will be. The status is yet to be determined.”

Construction on the Heartland Corridor started in the fall of 2007 and NS officials hope to complete the project by early next year. NS engineers designed the project to modify tunnels and bridges along the NS mainline between Columbus, Ohio and Hampton Roads, Va., to accommodate taller intermodal trains. When the project is completed, the Heartland Corridor will enable intermodal train traffic to cut about 200 miles off their current routing between the Midwest and East Coast.

According to Chapman, there are currently 12 tunnel modification projects underway currently with others due to get underway soon. He said work on the Cooper Tunnel on the Mercer-McDowell county line is set to get underway in April, and that contract crews are now working on tunnel expansion projects at Vivian, Big Four, Hemphill, Antler, Twin Branch, Vaughn, Roderfield, Laurel and Gordon. “We’re probably ahead of schedule,” Chapman said.

When the railroad announced the start of the project in 2007, Tim Drake, NS vice president of engineering called the Heartland Corridor “one of the most significant railroad engineering projects of modern times.” The federal government agreed and committed $95 million of the $151 million project cost and the states of Virginia, Ohio and West Virginia each came through with funding as well.

Brian Cochran, acting Bluefield city manager and city attorney said that a decision on the bridge is “still several months down the road,” but the city can see a benefit to removing the Belcher Bridge.

“There is a significant economic benefit if the railroad removed the Belcher Bridge,” Cochran said. “They would pay us for the bridge, and we could use those funds to repair the Martin Luther King Jr., Bridge,” Cochran said. “We still need to get an estimate from the Department of Highways for the cost of the Martin Luther King Bridge project, but that is our responsibility ... the city’s responsibility.”

Cochran said that the board will schedule informational meetings as well as public hearings before deciding the fate of the bridge. “If the old bridge is removed, we can make improvements to access roads the people who live in that area now use,” he said. There are four additional bridges that cross the NS mainline in Bluefield including the Easley Bridge, MLK, Jr., Bridge, Grant Street and Old Bluefield-Princeton Road Bridge near the city garages.

Mel Grubb grew up in the city’s East End, but often walked across the old Belcher Bridge to play on the stacks of lumber awaiting shipping outside the saw mill. “I used to jump from one stack of wood to the next stack,” Grubb said. “It’s amazing that I didn’t get hurt back in those days.”

John Hill grew up in Belcher’s company town within the city. His father C.R. Hill, was the millwright at the 12-foot bandmill.

“Bluefield was so crowded back then,” Hill said of his youth living in the collection of 12-15 homes Belcher built for his employees. “There were from 25 to 50 people living there with maybe two or three in a house. The Belchers came up here from Belcher, Ky., to open this sawmill and brought my dad in from Naugatuck to work here. It was a booming place.”

Hill said Belcher operated a commissary near the mill, sold gasoline and had a railroad siding into the mill area. Belcher landed a contract with the U.S. Navy during World War II, and had a saw that was big enough to handle huge mahogany logs from Africa. “He shipped lumber as far away as Canada and the Carolinas,” Hill said.

By the time Hill returned from service in World War II, the company had moved out of the city. Belcher operated mills in Caldwell and Ronceverte. Hill said that the “bridge was always there,” however, the buildings associated with the lumber mill camp are gone.

The fate of the bridge that served the saw mill will be decided in the months ahead,” according to Cochran.

– Contact Bill Archer at barcher@bdtonline.com