Email exchange w/Don Corbin re: October MR article

[nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org]

Hi Everybody:

With Don's permission, I am posting here an email exchange with Don Corbin about my article on passenger ops in October MR for those interested.

Rich Weyand


>From: "don corbin" <gdcwcc at cox.net>
>To: <weyand at rcn.com>
>Subject: mr article
>Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 10:10:22 -0300
>
>Mr. Weyand,
>     I commend you for writing an article for publication.  It's not easy and you subject yourself to numerous, nitpicky comments.  I usually do not comment on articles' accuracy however the Model Railroader article had several horrendous misstatements.
>1.  N&W did not build its own passenger cars, lightweight or heavyweight.  The lightweight cars were from Pullman Standard or Budd, mostly Pullman Standard.  The heavyweights were from either Bethlehem or Harland and Hollingsworth.  There are several excellent books on the matter.  I would recommend Jim Nichols's book and the N&W Handbook from Wallace and Wiley.
>2.  The comment that late operations were a norm was not accurate.  In fact, the only one that had chronic schedule difficulty was Train 26, the eastbound Arrow.  Trains 3 & 4 (Pocahontas) and Trains 15 & 16 (Cavalier) were 95% on time performers.  And they were certainly not a recognizable drain on employee morale.  That sounds like the worn-out, organized labor refrain when train discontinuances were opposed.  The fact is, that by the late 50's through the mid 60's, not many employees cared one way or the other.  In fact, N&W always took great pains to operate superior trains.  Trains 3 and 4 and 25 and 26 each had a train porter who, in addition to assisting passengers with luggage, swept and cleaned the coaches enroute.  The sleeping cars also had a porter who did the same for each sleeper.  The trains were wet mopped and had an exterior wash at Norfolk and Cincinnati each trip.  If a car had a cracked window, it was bad ordered and fixed.  The insinuation that service and quality of equipment was poor does a disservice to all of us who were there.  I wish you had done further research before writing that.    
>3.  Trains 21 and 22 never operated west of Petersburg.  They were the connection from Norfolk to the ACL, RF&P to Washington and PRR to New York.  Incidentally, Trains 21 and 22 were known as "The Cannonball".  In the late 50's Trains 15 and 16 were combined with 21 and 22 at Petersburg rather than maintaining a separate schedule.
>4.  Trains 1 and 2 were not named, but were still a secondary connection train.  The were colloqually known as the "Valley Train" and ran from Roanoke to New York via Shenandoah, Hagerstown and the PRR via Harrisburg.  These trains had a through sleeper to New York and the coach to Harrisburg.  In the early 60's, the diner was operated to Shenandoah.  So, it was more than "an accomadation".
>5.  I also believe that you will find that Trains 25 and 26 did not meet at Welch, but were scheduled just east of there.  The second track you speak of was sub-ended when the freight bypass was built. There is an interesting article in the N&W Historical Society's magazine a couple of issues ago showing some photos.
>6.  The headend cars were mostly storage mail, railway express or rpo's.  The N&W had no lightweight headend cars.  Only one baggage car was needed and that was underutilized.
>There are other things, but are too numerous to mention.  Thanks for trying, though.
>                                             Don Corbin
>                                              Roanoke, Virginia   


>Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 10:23:22 -0500
>To: "don corbin" <gdcwcc at cox.net>
>From: Rich Weyand <weyand at enteract.com>
>Subject: Re: mr article
>
>Hi Don:
>
>At 10:10 AM 8/30/2004 -0300, you wrote:
>>1.  N&W did not build its own passenger cars, lightweight or heavyweight.  The lightweight cars were from Pullman Standard or Budd, mostly Pullman Standard.  The heavyweights were from either Bethlehem or Harland and Hollingsworth.  There are several excellent books on the matter.  I would recommend Jim Nichols's book and the N&W Handbook from Wallace and Wiley.
>
>You are correct here.  The Arrow cars were reconditioned by the N&W from their 1941 Pullman cars.  I misinterpreted the comment: "The N&W did what it did best ... and built its own train." in referencing Bill Warden's book.  Re-reading it just a little further would have cleared that up.
>
>>2.  The comment that late operations were a norm was not accurate.  In fact, the only one that had chronic schedule difficulty was Train 26, the eastbound Arrow.  Trains 3 & 4 (Pocahontas) and Trains 15 & 16 (Cavalier) were 95% on time performers.  And they were certainly not a recognizable drain on employee morale.  That sounds like the worn-out, organized labor refrain when train discontinuances were opposed.  The fact is, that by the late 50's through the mid 60's, not many employees cared one way or the other.  In fact, N&W always took great pains to operate superior trains.  Trains 3 and 4 and 25 and 26 each had a train porter who, in addition to assisting passengers with luggage, swept and cleaned the coaches enroute.  The sleeping cars also had a porter who did the same for each sleeper.  The trains were wet mopped and had an exterior wash at Norfolk and Cincinnati each trip.  If a car had a cracked window, it was bad ordered and fixed.  The insinuation that service and quality of equipment was poor does a disservice to all of us who were there.  I wish you had done further research before writing that.    
>
>The late operation comment was meant to apply to passenger operations in general in the 1950s and 1960s, not to the N&W in particular.  The morale comment was added by Kalmbach editors after the article left my hands.  My original text contains no morale comment and refers to 1950s railroads in general:
>
>"Finally, the reduced compliance to published schedules (a.k.a. ‘running late’) of the late passenger period is also more amenable to our modeling.  We build and operate our railroads for fun, and our model schedules also seem to slip a bit, even at the best of times.  For passenger service in the 1950s and 1960s, we can claim that our habitual modeler tardiness is prototypical modeling!"
>
>>3.  Trains 21 and 22 never operated west of Petersburg.  They were the connection from Norfolk to the ACL, RF&P to Washington and PRR to New York.  Incidentally, Trains 21 and 22 were known as "The Cannonball".  In the late 50's Trains 15 and 16 were combined with 21 and 22 at Petersburg rather than maintaining a separate schedule.
>>4.  Trains 1 and 2 were not named, but were still a secondary connection train.  The were colloqually known as the "Valley Train" and ran from Roanoke to New York via Shenandoah, Hagerstown and the PRR via Harrisburg.  These trains had a through sleeper to New York and the coach to Harrisburg.  In the early 60's, the diner was operated to Shenandoah.  So, it was more than "an accomadation".
>
>Not sure what the disagreement is here.  The discussion of secondary and accommodation trains refers to railroad operations in general in the 1950s and 1960s, not N&W in particular.
>
>>5.  I also believe that you will find that Trains 25 and 26 did not meet at Welch, but were scheduled just east of there.  The second track you speak of was sub-ended when the freight bypass was built. There is an interesting article in the N&W Historical Society's magazine a couple of issues ago showing some photos.
>
>The June 1958 schedule has the Arrows departing Welch in both direction within two minutes of each other, at 3:26 and 3:28.  I admit this was an anomaly, as earlier and later timetables scheduled the meet outside (I think east) of town.  If the track was stubbed by then, one must have made a reverse move on arrival or departure.
>
>>6.  The headend cars were mostly storage mail, railway express or rpo's.  The N&W had no lightweight headend cars.  Only one baggage car was needed and that was underutilized.
>
>I knew that only one baggage was required.  I was unaware that there were no lightweight baggage cars, although that would make sense in that the Arrow trainsets did not originally have baggage cars.
>
>
>Thanks for the note.  I will note that the point of the article was to get people out of the roundy-rounder mode of passenger ops, where they just run a fixed train or two around the layout.  The goal was to get them to do some research on their prototype and set up a credible schedule and operating plan for the passenger ops.  I did not intend it as a source article for N&W prototype research, but to use the N&W as an example of how to set up a model schedule and ops.  
>
>The original article title was "Modeling the declining passenger operations of the 1950s and 1960s" with N&W as an example.  MR made the article, in title and tone, N&W specific, after first asking me not to when they approved my original proposal.  There were originally separate sections on 'railroads in general' and N&W in particular, and MR mashed them all together and made it all sound more-or-less N&W specific.
>
>The other issue is that MR is very difficult to write accurately for.  You submit the article, they accept it, and then they do whatever they want with it, including rewriting it and reorganizing it.  The author has absolutely no control whatsoever after submission, not even oversight in the form of seeing a proof copy before it hits the press.  There is no collaborative effort to create a clean product.  I got my author copy a week before the mag hit the mailbox, and that's the first time I saw my own article.
>
>Anyway, thanks for the note.  I knew that whatever I did would not be completely accurate for knowledgeable N&W fans, but I felt the point that most modelers were missing out on passenger operations needed to be made.


>From: "don corbin" <gdcwcc at cox.net>
>To: "Rich Weyand" <weyand at enteract.com>
>Subject: Re: mr article
>Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 12:44:44 -0300
>
>Rich,
>     Not to belabor a point, but the 1949 Arrow was not an N&W rebuild from
>the 1941 equipment.  The 1949 Arrow was an entirely new train, ordered
>before WWII but not delivered until 1949.  The original coaches from 1941
>(classified as PM) were cascaded to Trains 3 and 4 and then to other trains
>as service declined.  PM coaches 1720-1722 were reconfigured inside to make
>a mid-train lounge.  These cars then operated on Trains 3 and 4 and were the
>lounge cars dropped with the diner at Williamson.  These cars also included
>dormitory space for the dining car personnel.   In the mid 60's, these cars
>were converted back to coaches.  The only difference between these and the
>other PM's was that the window in the Women's lavatory was blanked out.
>     As another note, the P1 locker, smoker, divided coaches built for the
>1949 Arrow were also converted to full coaches and reassigned to Trains 1
>and 2.  They did not receive exterior paint until the demise of Trains 1 and
>2, ergo, the Powhatan Arrow logo on the side remained.  Train 2 was an
>across-the-platform connection with Train 26 and by that time, Train 26 was
>almost identical in length and consist.  More than once, passengers in
>Roanoke would get confused and attempt to get on the wrong train, both
>trains being externally marked Powhatan Arrow.
>     It's a shame that MR takes such liberties with an author's product.  I'm
>surprised they would do such a thing, given their prominence in the magazine
>arena.
>     Your comments (maybe not yours, at all) made mention that Trains 21 and
>22 had long been dropped west of Petersburg.  And also that mainline and
>secondary trains had names.  I was pointing out that Trains 1 and 2 were
>more than accomodations and did not have a name.  The same was true with
>Trains 33 and 34, Portsmouth to Columbus.
>     I was not trying to be overly critical, but when I read in the N&W
>Forum, the responses that accepted eveything as fact, I felt compelled to
>comment.
>     Again thanks.  Don Corbin


>Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 12:26:26 -0500
>To: "don corbin" <gdcwcc at cox.net>
>From: Rich Weyand <weyand at enteract.com>
>Subject: Re: mr article
>
>At 12:44 PM 8/30/2004 -0300, you wrote:
>>     It's a shame that MR takes such liberties with an author's product.  I'm
>>surprised they would do such a thing, given their prominence in the magazine
>>arena.
>
>Agreed.  Actually, it may be their prominence that gives them the feeling that they can and should edit articles the way they do.  I usually provide what editors call 'clean copy', that is, material that doesn't need to be edited for flow or grammar.  The smaller magazines have therefore usually run with my original text intact as delivered.  This is my first MR article, and I was somewhat dismayed by the liberties, and especially by the lack of a final check with the author.
>
>Had I included lengthy discussion of what cars were ordered and delivered when, the history of those cars within the railroad as they were moved from train to train, and the other information you provided, they would have been cut from the article anyway.  The hard limit on MR articles is usually 6 pages.  As it was, they muddied the clear distinctions I made between general practice and N&W specifics when they compressed the original article to fit the editorial constraints.
>
>Which does not excuse my error on N&W building the Arrow cars, however, or the implication that 21 and 22 ever operated west of Petersburg.  What's in the article should have been correct.
>
>>     I was not trying to be overly critical, but when I read in the N&W
>>Forum, the responses that accepted eveything as fact, I felt compelled to
>>comment.
>
>Understood.  I didn't take your comments as overly critical.
>
>Do I have your permission to post our correspondence to the forum, so that those interested have the benefit of your comments as well?  
>
>As I say, my point in the article was to get people to really model passenger ops -- not simply to run a passenger train or two through the scene -- and not to muddy the waters of N&W history for those performing research.  As I say in the article, you should research your prototype with care, including publications from the appropriate historical societies and much longer works such as the excellent books that have been written on passenger ops and equipment of specific railroads.  
>
>All a short article can do is point out the possibilities as a way to get people motivated to do more than roundy-round the varnish.


>From: "don corbin" <gdcwcc at cox.net>
>To: "Rich Weyand" <weyand at enteract.com>
>Subject: Re: mr article
>Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 13:37:06 -0300
>
>Rich,
>Maybe I'll go back to just looking at the pictures!  I wish I could build
>things like the ones I've seen in MR.  I'd even settle for roundy-round!
>Of course you have my permission to post all this to the Forum.  It will be
>interesting to see the response that brings.  I can't wait for Ed King and
>Ken Miller to chime in.   Don Corbin


>Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 12:51:57 -0500
>To: "don corbin" <gdcwcc at cox.net>
>From: Rich Weyand <weyand at enteract.com>
>Subject: Re: mr article
>
>At 01:37 PM 8/30/2004 -0300, you wrote:
>>Maybe I'll go back to just looking at the pictures!  I wish I could build
>>things like the ones I've seen in MR.  I'd even settle for roundy-round!
>>Of course you have my permission to post all this to the Forum.  It will be
>>interesting to see the response that brings.  
>
>OK, I'll post it.
>
>>I can't wait for Ed King and Ken Miller to chime in.
>
>Oo.  Ouch.  I think I can.  ;-)
>
>BTW, the article Ed King has in the Sept. Trains on super-power steam is excellent.