Mail Train Operation Was... Re: Anyone know what train this is?

[NW Mailing List]

The "*NORFOLK AND WESTERN RAILWAY COMPANY TRANSPORTATION DEPARTMENT* CONSIST
OF ALL MAIN LINE PASSENGER TRAINS Revised and Reissued, March 15, 1954"
that's available from the NWHS Commissary shows the following for Train No.
23, Roanoke to Portsmouth (not all cars run every day, and I'm not going to
transcribe all the footnotes)

1 Storage Mail Car                Bluefield to Columbus
1 Storage Mail Car                Bluefield to Cincinnati
1 Storage Mail Car                Greensboro to Cincinnati
1 Express Car                      Roanoke to Cincinnati
1 Storage Mail Car                Washington or Roanoke to Cincinnati
1 Mail & Baggage Car           Roanoke to Williamson
1 Express Car                      Greensboro to Cincinnati
1 Passenger & Baggage Car  Roanoke to Columbus
1 Coach                               Roanoke to Portsmouth

The document summarizes train length by segment, Roanoke-Bluefield,
Bluefield-Williamson,  Williamson-Portsmouth.  Since this photo is within
Roanoke-Bluefield, and has seven cars, it should have been taken on a
Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday.  The maximum possible train length of nine
cars would occur Bluefield-Williamson on Wed. and Thur.  The slide was
supposedly taken about a year later than this consist document is dated,
and it appears that the "Passenger & Baggage Car" has been replaced by an
Express Car or possibly Baggage and Express (the footnote for this car in
the Consist document says, "Baggage and to be used for baggage and
express".)

Dave Phelps

On Fri, Jan 13, 2017 at 11:42 AM, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
wrote:

> On 1/12/2017 11:37 PM, NW Mailing List wrote:
>
> I agree with the description in the ebay listing. It is train 23, the all
> stops mainline local,
>
> (snip)
>
> This probably falls into the silly question area, but....
>
> Most of the photos I have seen show these trains in the mountains.   So
> did they start from the East with a smaller number of headend cars and pick
> up & drop off others on the way, or were cars loaded & unloaded as needed
> at various stops?
>
> Thanks,
> Bill
>
> --
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