Foundation Rededicates Bristol Union Railway Station

BRISTOL, Va. – With a flurry of whistles, flags and women in white dresses, the Bristol Union Railway Station was rededicated Saturday, more than a century after it first opened in 1902.

“It is a rail hub, and it could be a hub again someday,” said Carl Moore, president of the Bristol Train Station Foundation. “It was how you traveled.”

Moore rode the train from here in 1939 to attend the World’s Fair in New York City – back when the train meant smoke and soot and was “very exciting.”

Men left from here to go to war, and came home on the train when the war was over, Moore said. Women arrived here when they came to attend Bristol’s colleges. Circus trains arrived in town at this spot, followed by parades down State Street.

Saturday’s grand re-opening commemorated not only the station’s history, but also the arrival of the railroad in Bristol more than 150 years ago.

“It was Oct. 1, 1856, that the first train came to Bristol, and part of the pageantry was 120 maidens, dressed in white,” said Carolyn Williams, chairman of archives for the Bristol Historical Association.

“There were speeches and the band played and then the next day there was a barbecue. ... From then on, anyway, that [the railroad] was the one thing that spurred the growth of Bristol.”

Bristol was a big stop between Roanoke and Knoxville, Williams said, with constant freight and passenger rail traffic. With the boom that developed, many of the city’s biggest buildings went up in the early 20th century.

Mary Beth Rainero, president of the historical association, remembers when she came here from Chicago in 1960 to attend college – and even then, the street was lined with hotels to serve all of the people getting off the train.

But with the advent of the Interstate highway system and commercial air travel, passenger trains went out of fashion – and the train station here was converted to shops, for a while. The building sat empty for years before the Bristol Train Station Foundation bought it in 2000, Williams said.

Nearly a decade and $5 million later, the station was rededicated on the Fourth of July with the same festive atmosphere that christened the coming of the railroad more than 150 years ago – and every weekend between now and the end of the year is booked for special events at the station.

“I’m tickled to death to see the train station in the state that we find it in today, a festive atmosphere that’s fitting for the Fourth of July,” said Virginia state Sen. William Wampler, R-Bristol, one of the speakers who addressed a crowd of hundreds from the steps of the station.

As the speeches began, a Norfolk-Southern freight train rumbled slowly past, and ladies dressed in white for the occasion waved flowers in celebration.

Bristol Tennessee Mayor Joel Staton said he hopes to one day see passenger rail service return to Bristol, something he believes would revitalize downtown.

“People would stop here and visit the downtown area if they didn’t have to drive,” said Staton, who also remembers riding the train. “It was a nice ride.”

Bristol Virginia Mayor Jim Rector praised the community for its decade of work to restore the old train station.

“We did not see the city line or the state line of Tennessee and Virginia; we saw a group of citizens working together to bring something back to life,” Rector said. “It’s something we all, of Bristol, Va.-Tenn., will all enjoy as we go through the rest of our lives.”

The restored train platform encapsulates a brief history of transportation in Bristol, with the tracks on one side, a modern parking lot on the other and an old wood-and-metal wagon in the center.

A series of steam whistles here for the occasion also melded past and future modes of travel, arriving on a special tractor-trailer Saturday.

“I was born beside the railroad tracks on the New River Trail, the 31-mile marker just across the river, near Ivanhoe,” said Lee Alley, the Bristol, Tenn., man who owns and operates the whistles. “I lived a lot of places, but never anywhere I couldn’t hear a train whistle.”

Alley said his mother died when he was young and he lived in a series of places, where his father paid for him to stay during difficult times. He was separated from his father and five siblings, he said, but train whistles always did something for his loneliness.

“There’s kids that’s never heard a steam whistle,” Alley said, “and there’s old people it brings back so many memories to them.”

Anna Horne, of Bristol, Tenn., was at the train station celebration, soft-shoeing to the music of Bristol’s Own Dixieland Jazz Band – the kind of music she remembers from her youth in the 1930s.

“When I hear the music, I just can’t keep still,” said Horne, who was born in 1924. “And it’s good exercise. It’s wonderful exercise.”

She said she took her first trip to Washington, D.C., by train – a shorter and less-tiring trip than what was then a drive on two-lane roads. With the train also came a kind of warm fellowship, she said, a community spirit that’s been lost over the years.

“There’s something special about a train going through a community. It sort of tied the communities together,” Horne said. “I think the train station and some of the old parts of Bristol that have been restored, it’s bringing the community back together.”

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