That was before I-64 was finished of course. There'd always be a big line of trucks, because like I said, you could be empty but you'd run up behind a loaded truck, but you could be heavy and dragging and holding everybody else up- until you ran up behind an even slower truck, which you always did. There used to be a big flashing yellow light on top of Armstrong Mountain, it's long gone now though. And they say Smith's Transfer used to keep a push truck up there in winter, so they could push Smith's trucks up the mountain. They would push anybody else that needed it too, I guess so they wouldn't block the road and hold up the Smith's trucks. I knew one driver that got a push up the mountain, he said "I appreciated that, but I really didn't need that shove he gave me starting off the other side!"- True story.
There were several truck stops across there, we used to stop at Cedar Grove right much, and Ansted sometimes. There was a weigh station just east of Ansted too, and even a "working girl" who drove a van that worked between Ansted and rt.19- so I heard, so I heard, I don't know that everything I know is factual.
And those scars in the road coming out of the last curve coming into Rainelle- I told a driver that was running across there with me one time that they were all from trucks turning over in that curve , but they didn't believe me- but they were. No telling how many trucks turned over in that curve, and in dead man's curve.