Double-Stacks on the Heartland Corridor in Roanoke, VA

I hear a Rumbling from my vantage while signing prints at the Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke.  A coal train has waited outside the window for about ten minutes.  Now I look up and a trio of Dash-9 locomotives pass.  Double-stacked containers follow the lead.

These containers spell progress.  Tunnels were raised along the route through West Virginia's Appalachians to make a significantly shorter route from Chicago to Norfolk, through towns such as Bellevue, OH; Kenova, WV and Roanoke, VA.  I witness this progress as these containers pass, carrying goods from domestic markets and from abroad.  This is progress on the modern railroad.  This is The Heartland Corridor of Norfolk Southern.