Fw: End of N&W passenger service

[NW Mailing List]

Retired Lynchburg, Va. Amtrak Station agent Garland Harper offered this link below to answer questions about the end of N&W passenger service.
Thanks Garland!
Norris


Norris Deyerle

Blue Ridge Chapter, National Railway Historical Society Chairman of Virginia's Rail Heritage Region Partners

Info: www.blueridgenrhs.org<http://www.blueridgenrhs.org>

744 Chinook Place

Lynchburg, Virginia 24502-4908

Cell: 434-851-0151

________________________________
From: grharper at aol.com <grharper at aol.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 9, 2021 8:11 PM
To: railcow at msn.com <railcow at msn.com>
Subject: Re: End of N&W passenger service

The Museum of Railway Timetables (timetables.org)<http://timetables.org/full.php?group=19710712&item=0029>

does this help?  July 1971 t.t.   In the May 1, 1971, amtrak t.t. it appears to assume that Southern is a part of amtrak


-----Original Message-----
From: NORRIS DEYERLE <railcow at msn.com>
To: Lee Hawkins <railhawk46 at aol.com>; Garland Harper <grharper at aol.com>; Tom Gilbert <tgilbert77 at hotmail.com>; Roy Evans <cp4cn at msn.com>; Rick Johnson <notch8 at aol.com>; Ed Burnett <ctwrwy at comcast.net>; Ed Fielding <refielding at verizon.net>; Charlie Long <cwlongjr at gmail.com>; Bank (CB&T) <flytrains at yahoo.com>; Gale C. McKinley <mckingc at yahoo.com>
Sent: Sun, May 9, 2021 7:39 pm
Subject: Fwd: End of N&W passenger service

Greetings folks,
Most of you know a lot more about Lynchburg passenger service than I do. Here’s so food for your thoughts. I would love to share your thoughts with the NWHS members.
Thanks,
Norris

Sent from my iPhone

Begin forwarded message:

From: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
Date: May 9, 2021 at 9:10:09 AM EDT
To: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
Subject: End of N&W passenger service
Reply-To: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>

(After a couple of years of enjoying this mailing list despite not being a member of the HS, I realized I needed to help support the HS and joined. By doing so, I received the latest Arrow as part of my new member package so realize I have probably received it sooner than many of you).

In the article about the end of N&W passenger service, the question of what was the last passenger train out of Roanoke is mentioned. I’ve seen this question brought up before. There is the well documented trip of #4 (the Pocahontas) that left Cincinnati a little before midnight on 4/30/71 and passed through Roanoke on 5/1/71. But the there is mention that some people also claim there was a #18 (Bristol-Lynchburg and then on to Washington via the Southern) on 5/1. But as such a train would have originated in Bristol on 5/1, it should not have run.

What I suspect might have happened was the equipment the arrived in Bristol as #17 on 4/30 deadheaded to Lynchburg on 5/1 on #18’s schedule, possibly running as #18 but without passengers. Why? Almost certainly Southern needed the equipment in Lynchburg for their #18. As Southern did not join Amtrak, they still had to run their portion of #17 and #17 between Washington and Lynchburg. But on the morning of 5/1, there was no equipment in Lynchburg because #17 of 4/30 had run to Bristol. Starting 5/2 the equipment that arrived Lynchburg as the previous day’s #17 would be #18’s equipment but not on 5/1. And assuming Southern’s #17 and #18 still ran on the same schedule, Southern would still need two sets of equipments as the trains passed between Washington and Lynchburg. While I don’t have a 5/1/71 schedule, a 10/70 schedule I have has #17 departing Washington at 2:15pm and arriving Lynchburg at 6:10pm while #18 departed Lynchburg at 1:30pm and arrived Washington at 5:40pm. A 5/72 schedule had it running as #7 and #8 on a somewhat different schedule: 11:45am to 4:05pm southbound and 9:40am to 2:30pm northbound so still needing two sets of equipment. Regardless of what the actual 5/1/71 schedule was out of Lynchburg for Southern, they probably needed to get equipment there and Bristol, with equipment having arrived there that would never depart as a scheduled passenger train, was a good place for it to come from.

--
Larry Stone
lstone19 at stonejongleux.com





________________________________________
NW-Mailing-List at nwhs.org
To change your subscription go to
http://list.nwhs.org/mailman/options/nw-mailing-list
Browse the NW-Mailing-List archives at
http://list.nwhs.org/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist6.pair.net/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/attachments/20210510/60d17302/attachment-0001.htm>