N&W J servicing and the Lynchburg-Monroe region

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Louis Newton has been kind enough to share with us his memories and
diary notes in his Rails Remembered - Volume 3, Page 686 where he
mentions about seeing a Danville Division local steam freight powered
by ex-CNO&TP Mike #6308 on December 13,1952. In addition, he also
related to me that the coaling facility at Monroe was definitely gone
when he visited thru Monroe on May 22,1953.

While this doesn't preclude the possibility of steam servicing at
Monroe of N&W coal powered equipment, it definitely puts it so if the
"J's" or any other steamers required coal, it had to be delivered via
either a conveyor or clam shell or some other cumbersome method, which
sounds less likely on a regular basis after either late 1952 to
mid-1953, at least on the Southern in the Monroe vicinity. So I stand
corrected in "presuming" that N&W steam was still being serviced there
until the end of 1957. Please excuse.

Still .......... Island Yard wasn't terribly far away but for the
always economy minded N&W, that would still have been an expense they
would have tried to avoid.


Bob Cohen


More memories from Blue Ridge Chapter Member, Lee Hawkins, as relayed
by Norris Deyerle:
                                    =================
Boy this thing is going on and on. I love it.

More memories I think:

I have some thoughts about how they coaled the J's after 1953 (when
the coal chute came down at Monroe).

I have seen some reports, in a magazine ? (memory loss here), that
traced the route, times, train numbers, etc. of each J between
servicing.

Not real sure about this, I think I saw that they would put a fresh J
on at Roanoke for the trip to Monroe and back (which eliminated
coaling and such at Monroe).