Steam Pusher Engines

[NW Mailing List]

Bruce is correct. However, I’ve never seen any evidence that pushers were assigned there, it was more of a set out track for bad orders, or on the off chance a pusher was needed westbound, the normal pusher from Boaz would push east, then cut off near Irving, would get a signal, then back through the crossover and could go into the siding as needed. Operations here can be really complex, as there were many options to handle a westbound pusher, but that would depend a lot on the approaching westbound, passenger traffic and other trains needed to clear. Crossovers werre located east of the middle track at Montvale and at Irving. Basically the foot of a short grade is just east of Irving by about a mile and a half, but the westbound would have crested the grade and ready to start the heavier climb that began just east of Montvale.

Regarding pushers on passenger trains on the N&W, never saw evidence of such. If the train was high profile, it would be doubleheaded or broken into two or more sections. Doubleheading in the late steam era was generally not so much because of a heavy train, but a power move to get a locomotive in position to handle a special train and prevent the wear and tear on the locomotive brake shoes running light.

Best
Ken Miller

> On Feb 28, 2021, at 12:49 PM, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
> 
> On Sun, Feb 28, 2021 at 5:17 AM Ken wrote:
> 
> > 3.      If coal coals trains used pusher engines, where would they have been attached?
> 
> Pushers were attached out of the pusher siding at Boaz, a location little known today, but considered Berkeley Bottom to some. The former pusher siding is next to some soccer fields today. Then they pushed east over the summit at Blue Ridge, where they cut off on the fly, usually, and returned to the pusher siding at Boaz. Now, that operation really depended a lot on what else was going on. Sometimes the pusher would go all the way to Montvale and there was a westbound pusher siding east of the station, if there was a westbound that needed a pusher, or was broken down.
> 
> In past discussions about Blue Ridge and pushers, Irving was mentioned as a pusher siding on the east side of the grade. It was a bit of an amorphous location but Irving does exist along U.S. 460 east of Montvale. At the top of the easbound S-curves, to the left, is Irving Road, crossing the N&W on a wooden-deck bridge. Irving Road then parallels the railroad to the east, intersecting with Nester Road and the grade crossing back over the track. Just to the east of the bridge is a wide area on the north side of the track, reached by a maintainer's road, which suspiciously looks like it at one time could have been the pusher siding at Irving. 
> 
> Bruce in Blacksburg
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