1908 - Forty-Three Sure to Come

[NW Mailing List]

Roanoke Times - February 21, 1908

FORTY-THREE SURE TO COME

Persistent Rumor That Southern Train Will Operate on N. & W.

   It is persistently rumored among the employes of the Southern 
Railway that that company has under consideration the proposition to 
operate train No. 43, the solid mail and express train, over the 
Norfolk & Western or Chattanooga route, instead of via Charlotte and 
Atlanta, as has been the case since this service was instituted with 
train No. 97 some years ago. The train would be brought to Lynchburg 
and delivered to the Norfolk and Western, which system would handle 
it to Bristol, returning it to the Southern at that point.
   It is said the Southern has lost a number of valuable connections 
out of Atlanta and Birmingham to the South and Southwest, and it was 
for this reason that the postal authorities found it necessary to 
extend the mail routes on Nos. 41 and 42 over the Southern to 
Washington from Lynchburg. These trains are now carrying through mail 
cars from Washington to Chattanooga, all of the mail for 
Alabama,  Mississippi and States west and south of the Mississippi 
now being taken by this route.
   This same report has it that train No. 44, which is operated as a 
through train between Atlanta and Lynchburg, and a slow local between 
Lynchburg and Washington, will be discontinued between Atlanta and 
Lynchburg, the company making provision for a northbound local out of 
Lynchburg in the afternoon to take place of No. 44.

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- Ron Davis, Roger Link