Past Holiday Traffic

[NW Mailing List]

Bruce

Express coach is probably a term. The N&W had several classes of passenger cars that were devoted to Express service, Ea, Eb, Ec and perhaps Ed at the time. Like most everything of that era, information is somewhat spotty and limited. Based on the N&W RR diagram sheets I’ve seen, the Ea was a single car, 48 foot long, number 237 and either off the roster or renumbered by 1894. Could have been destroyed in a wreck as well. Records, as I say are pretty spotty. the Eb and Ec were roughly 60 foot cars, and the Ed was a 65 foot car and those remained on the roster until the late 1920s when some were converted to MofW cars or were part of the wooden car retirements in 1932-33. The roster data is from Jim Brewer’s rosters available on our website.

When express business became more of a rush, the N&W did what they always would do, adapt. They would convert boxcars to express service by adding marker brackets and steam and signal lines. They built or converted (not quite sure which) the Ef series of express steel cars in the early 1930s.

Regarding the several tons of dressed fowl, could have come from a variety of places.

Ken Miller

> On Nov 29, 2018, at 11:47 AM, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
> 
> While looking through the newspaper archives at the Library of Virginia (https://virginiachronicle.com/ <https://virginiachronicle.com/>) I ran across this brief mention of holiday traffic just over 100 years ago.
> 
> Several questions pop up from this: what was an "express coach" in 1915? Where did "several tons" of dressed fowl come from and where were they processed? Was there a packing house in Roanoke or did they come from various other points?
> 
> Bruce in Blacksburg
> --------------
> 
> World News, Volume 26, Number 149, 22 December 1915, pg. 1
> 
> N. & W. HAS HEAVY HOLIDAY EXPRESS
> The express shipments over the Norfolk & Western are said by officials to be the heaviest in years. Every train carries extra express coaches. Last night a special express train of eight coaches left Roanoke for Washington and other Northern points. The shipments consisted chiefly of dressed fowl, amounting to several tons.
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