Housekeeping

[nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org]

Ed  King :   The ACL was too busy moving freight and hauling passengers back
and forth to Florida  on passenger trains operating in up to three and four
sections
to sit around play Good Housekeeping.  Fat chance anybody ever saw that
Powatan Arrow ever carrying green signals for a following section.  After all,
how many people needed to ride a train  between a deadend point like Norfolk
and Cincinnati?    Except  for possibly the mail and express contract, I
will bet
the Arrow did not make out of pocket expenses.   And at intermediate stops,
the
conductor probably knew the passengers that got on and off the train by their
first names.  The ACL made a profit on passenger traffic and did not write it
off as a liability. To compare passenger traffic between the N&W and the ACL
is downright laughable. Amtrak never was weak enough to offer passenger
service in or out of Roanoke from any direction. As for the Tennesseean, that
was a Southern Railway  Memphis-Washington operation, and they originated
the majority of the passenger traffic, with the N&W being only a bit player
between Lynchburg and Bristol.  Pretty doesn't  cut it on a railroad.   If
it did,
aside from the J's, the N&W would strike out too.  If you think I am going to
apologize for the operations on the Atlantic Coast Line, you had better find 
yourself another boy.   There must have been a valid reason to call it
"The Standard Railroad Of The South."   Bill Sellers