Thick clouds of smoke and a burning stench swept through downtown Roanoke on Saturday night because of a photo shoot at the Virginia Museum of Transportation.

More than 20 photographers were set up in a fenced area behind the museum getting shots of old trains that are no longer produced as smoke billowed from them. The museum's Facebook page identified the trains as the Norfolk & Western's 611 and 1218 locomotives from the 1940s and '50s, and said some photographers came from out of state to participate.

A Roanoke dispatcher said people had called about the smell, and police and fire personnel had been sent to investigate.

"It smelled like sulfur or a lot of old-time matches," said Mike Hale while sitting outside the Blue 5 Restaurant on Second Street.

Hale said the smoke was thick enough to block his sight of buildings a few blocks away toward the Gainsboro Bridge.

Steve Mock accompanied Hale, and said he thinks winds blowing toward downtown caused a lot of people to smell the powerful smoke. Mock said he first smelled the smoke about 8 p.m. and still smelled it more than an hour later.

"I don't think anyone out here was upset. We just wanted to know what it was," he said.

-- Lerone Graham