Passenger Train Consists Lynchburg-Bristol

[NW Mailing List]

 Based on my first sightings of the Tennessean in the late 1940's, I would guess that it ran more or less with its "as built" consist in the 1940's. The first change was two streamlined Pullmans replacing heavyweight cars in 1948 or 1949. That was the Tennessean the first time I saw it in Roanoke, and my memory is that all cars on the train were streamlined. I could be missing something, but that is how I have always remembered it. Changes in consist came later.
Jim Nichols
    On Tuesday, February 6, 2024 at 02:30:00 PM CST, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:  
 
 Hi Dan

Welcome!

The archives collection is only as good as the materials we get. Unfortunately, it seems likely, that the dispatchers train sheets were long since tossed away, probably in the 1960s for anything prior to 1960. Very likely, nobody thought to save them at the time. The dispatcher sheets would not give you consists regardless, only an engine number, and crew members and times on station. This is a sad fact of the era, while we would love to have dispatcher sheets of the steam era, they are few and far between. In all my years of collecting, I’ve not seen the first one.

Where you might (and I emphasize, might!) is in the conductor’s books or telegraphic reports of passenger trains. Once again, these are kind of scarce and the records are sometimes less than ideal. It depended greatly on the conductor keeping a detailed record of his consist. I’ve studied a wide variety of these books over the years, and it is indeed a mixed bag, some folks kept poor records, recording only the minimum of train number, locomotive number, engineer, fireman conductor and trainman plus time reported and time off, others did record the consist. Sometimes the writing is poor, done in pencil, and dirty pages. All that makes for hard to read records. In my collection, I’ve got books from all over the road and VGN, dating from the 1920 era on up, but it is hard to find some specifics, and details like you are looking for.

The archives has a fair collection of conductor’s books, none have been scanned, as they are time consuming to scan, and one really needs to “know the territory” to even interpret some of them. 

Most of my books tend to be from the late 1950s-1982, but I do recall one which might be of some use, it was a conductor working on the Tennessean, and he did record consists. As I recall, it is about 1955 or so.

The others at the archives require specific cataloging, and we are always open to volunteers, as we do have a shortage of volunteer hours.

Best
Ken Miller

> On Feb 6, 2024, at 2:30 PM, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
> 
> Dear List,
> 
> New member here. Does anyone have access to dispatcher train sheets, conductor's logs, or other records of passenger train consists in the 1940s between Lynchburg and Bristol? I am looking for Tennessean, Pelican, and Birmingham Special consists over the N&W during this time. The dispatcher records of train movements that the N&WHS has scanned and made available on its website don't appear to cover the 1940s. Any help is appreciated!
> 
> Dan Miller
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