FM Trainmasters

[NW Mailing List]

My apologies and belated thanks to you, Jimmy, for initiating this lively discussion!

Even though I was around during that time period, there have been many people who have been members, and thus contributors to "TT", especially N&W/NS folks, who have moved on for various reasons, and have taken this kind of info with them. So, unless they are now on this Mailing List, what they knew is most likely lost forever.

I agree completely that saving all the info we can will be a joy to future historians. I know what pleasure it brings me just to find some little "nugget" (to borrow from Gordon) from the past. In fact, it is often the smallest and most obscure details that fascinate me the most.

Keep the questions ... and the answers ...  coming. We all have a lot to learn.

Jeff
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: NW Mailing List 
  To: NW Mailing List 
  Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2008 12:06 PM
  Subject: Re: FM Trainmasters


  On Mon, Mar 17, 2008 at 10:03 PM, Jeff wrote:

    Bruce,

    Thanks for your inquiry which has brought forth a very interesting discussion.

  Actually, Jimmy Lisle gets credit for opening this can of worms -- I mean, starting this interesting thread :-)


    I do remember the rumors of the day that floated around concerning the "deliberate" non-action toward saving the 173, and I personally would not rule that out. I just don't think we will ever see any "smoking gun" documentation.

    In a later post, I appreciate the further clarification by Robb Fisher regarding specific dates of the program, numbers, classes, etc. Robb, you obviously have much more specific info than I do. I did find a note in my records that the 173 wasn't converted until 1981, which you verified for me.


  I had no expectation that anyone would come up with actual documentation (paper, an audio recording, whatever) of whichever honcho ordering the destruction of the Trainmaster. But we are a little further along in what we do know, that there was a slug conversion program and 173 was a part of it. Now if there is a way to back up the Turntable Times info with a second source, we will be even further ahead.

  Part of my impetus for pushing for data and details is to better document what we know now, while there is access to people who may know "the rest of the story" (no matter what story we may be talking about). Ron Davis, Roger Link, and Gordon Hamilton present the list with great news stories from 100 and 50 years ago that give a good glimpse of what was going on on and around the N&W at the time. Some of those stories have sparked lively discussions about "where was that location?" or "what type of engine was that and what happened to them?" If we can gather the information that is available now, then these types of questions 100 years from now might be easier to answer, i.e., when someone finds the photos of that 1776-173 excursion, then there will be a way for curious people to know when the 173 was converted (and its eventual fate as a slug) and what happened to the 1776.

  It is the least we can do as historians interested in the N&W.

  Bruce in Blacksburg




------------------------------------------------------------------------------


  ________________________________________
  NW-Mailing-List at nwhs.org
  To change your subscription go to
  http://list.nwhs.org/mailman/options/nw-mailing-list
  Browse the NW-Mailing-List archives at
  http://list.nwhs.org/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/


------------------------------------------------------------------------------


  Internal Virus Database is out-of-date.
  Checked by AVG Free Edition. 
  Version: 7.5.488 / Virus Database: 269.13.30/1030 - Release Date: 9/25/2007 8:02 AM
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/attachments/20080319/80b057c0/attachment.htm>