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By Ray Cox
Special to The Roanoke Times
Experience tells us some questions endure and nag. One, you may have heard before: The train has long since pulled away but whatever became of the station from which it departed?
A variation of that query dealt with here recently has been the fate of the old Buchanan depot after Norfolk & Western train service ceased there.
A twisty track has led us to a forgotten plan to deconstruct and reassemble that old station as part of failed effort to develop a living history exhibit at the old Explore Park in Roanoke County. Now part of the county park system, Explore was first conceived as a grand private venture to be developed upon an early American history theme.
Reporting from the unsolved mysteries desk, there are no new developments in the case of the missing Buchanan train depot.
Despair not. More details have emerged about its history between closing and its removal from its hometown to an undisclosed location.
The inquiry began when Jessie Burton, citizen of that splendid small town, came here seeking help to trace the whereabouts of the remains of the historic structure after they were hastened away by those who had handled the demolition in the mid-1980s.
The story as the questioner related it was that the depot had been meticulously disassembled and catalogued in order for it to be moved to what was then the developing Explore Park in Roanoke County.