N&W in 1909--New engines

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Bluefield Daily Telegraph
August 28, 1909

NORFOLK AND WESTERN GETS SIX OF NEW ENGINES
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Richmond Works to Increase Force to 2,500 Men to Handle New Contract for Forty Locomotives

    The Richmond branch of the American Locomotive Works is arranging to increase its working force to twenty-five hundred in order to handle two new contracts just closed for the construction of forty railway locomotives.  The works already employ fifteen hundred men.  Thirty-four of these engines are to be of the consolidation freight type, and are to be delivered to the Baltimore and Ohio during the months of October and November.  The remaining six are to be of the Pacific passenger type, and are ordered by the Norfolk and Western railway.  These passenger engines will be the biggest of their kind, and are designed to produce immense tractive power combined with speed running over sixty miles an hour.  The Norfolk and Western engines are to be delivered in November.
    In order that these contracts may be filled without trouble of delay the management of the works is inaugurating a new wage system which from an economical standpoint will be of great advantage both to the works and to the men employed.  This system does away with all piece work and its many complications, and establishes in its stead a flat time rate with extra pay added as an incentive for annual efficiency.  By this system more money on the average will be paid to the men, and much better results are expected to be attained.
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[Rosters do not show any Pacific engines delivered to the N&W in 1909, so apparently the expected November 1909 delivery was delayed into 1910.  According to Jeffries' book, these six more powerful Pacifics would have been the Class E2, No. 574 - 579, delivered in February and March 1910.]

Gordon Hamilton
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