Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, April 9, 1991                   TAG: 9104090099
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

PHONE-SERVICE DEMAND RISES

C&P Telephone reported 128,003 lines in use at the end of March compared to 125,342 lines a year earlier. The most recent figure was up 0.5 percent from 127,334 at the end of February.

Other items added this week to the economic chart show:

Norfolk Southern Corp. said it loaded 17,760 coal cars in its Pocahontas fields during the week ended Sunday. That's up 2.3 percent from 17,360 during a comparable week last year. Prior week loadings were 18,564 cars, meaning a 4.3 percent decline last week.

The unemployment rate in the Roanoke Valley stood at 4.9 percent in February, compared to an adjusted figure of 3.9 percent for the same month a year ago. The latter figure was reported last year at 4.2 percent. The February rate is up from 3.9 percent in January.

Roanoke banks cleared checks worth $154,069,078 against each other last week, down 48.3 percent from $297,844,099 during the comparable week last year..