1955: Dieselization, the process of replacing steam-fired locomotives with diesel-electric ones, on the Norfolk and Western Railway began with the purchase of eight American Locomotive Company (commonly referrred to as 'Alco') RS-3 road switcher locomotives, which were numbered from 300 to 307.

The RS-3 was a commonly used road-switcher locomotive, capable of pulling freight over main lines (i.e. 'road') and also of performing switching tasks (i.e. 'switcher') in a yard.

N&W press releases at the time indicated that the locomotives were purchased for service on the low-traffic Durham District, in order to release steam locomotives for service elsewhere. Racehorse Smith stated that, "[The purchase of RS-3s] does not mean that we have changed our view that our modern roller-bearing coal-burning steam locomotives can handle the major part of our traffic economically."

That would of course be a statement which Nixon Administration Press Secretary Ron Ziegler would describe as being "inoperative", had he been around at the time. However, those eight RS-3s would be the only ones of their type directly purchased by the N&W; the next Alco locomotives to appear on the property would be RS-11s, Alco's answer to the Electro-Motive Division's GP7 and GP9 series of locomotives.

Information for this post came from William E. Warden's Norfolk & Western: Diesel's Last Conquest, published by TLC Publishing of Lynchburg, Virginia in 1991.

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Two important events occurred today, the 28th of May, in the history of the Norfolk and Western Railway:

1946: Robert H. "Racehorse" Smith becomes the seventh President of the railway. Smith was another product of the N&W's career hiring policy, which sought to develop bright college graduates for long-term executive service. Basically, young men were hired from college to start in low-level jobs with the N&W, just like with every other sort of business at the time. N&W management would then oversee the careers of these men, placing them in various areas over the course of several decades in order to give them the experience, operational and financial, to allow them to later assume positions of management in the railway.

The small amount of reading that I've done on the N&W's hiring practices at that point in time indicates that this was somewhat uncommon; ordinarily, it would seem that a man who was hired to be a draftsman stayed a draftsman, and maybe became head of his department or something like that. Senior-level management was often recruited elsewhere, apparently. The N&W of course didn't do it that way, and chose to create its leadership from within.

President Smith's tenure is most relevant to modern fans due to his authorization of O. Winston Link's sojourns through the system, taking photographs of the waning days of steam locomotives in N&W revenue service.

Speaking of steam locomotives in revenue service...

1959: The last Class A locomotive in revenue service, 1214, is retired on this date. She would of course not survive President Stuart T. Saunders' revenue generation programs, being sold for scrap at some point in time after that. (Of the N&W's A-class locomotives, only 1218 survives, at the Virginia Museum of Transportation.

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Ah, the joys of digging through one's Google search results.

In doing so, I found a piece from the people at Liberty Haven about the Florida East Coast Railway.

I know very little about the FEC, largely because it's in Florida and I'm in Virginia. However, I know of it because the management there did something that the Norfolk and Western would wind up doing about a decade later (depending upon how you do the math).

Obligatory N&W Content: Perhaps inspired by the FEC's successful example, Norfolk and Western president Robert B. Claytor sent management to the cab in 1978, when the clerks' union struck the N&W. Claytor became known as the 'Red Baron', for his propensity to operate a Tuscan red locomotive; the livery was experimental livery and in any event, was not adopted.

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It's things like this that annoy me. Protection against terrorism my eye.

Just another reason to shake your fist at al-Qaeda for disrupting the country's natural flow of business. Luckily for me, I've got my own property with a view of the local Norfolk Southern line, so good luck to their cops coming and making something of me being on a porch with Carl Zeiss binoculars.

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According to the Wikipedia, forty-six years ago yesterday, a Lockheed F-104 Starfighter set a world speed record at 1404.19 MPH.

Joe Baugher's site says,

"On May 7, 1958, Major Howard C. Johnson reached an altitude of 91,249 feet in a zoom climb at Edwards AFB in California, setting a new altitude record. On May 16 (sic), 1958, Captain Walter W. Irwin flying a YF-104A set a new world's air speed record of 1404.19 mph flying over a 15/25 kilometer course at Edwards AFB. For the first time in history, the same aircraft type held both the world speed and altitude records at the same time."

The Federation of American Scientists have an illustrated fact sheet on the F-104; give a quick pass-through.

The Starfighter is arguably one of history's most excellent-looking aircraft of the jet age. It's also one of the longest-serving types, with the Italian air force still flying the Alenia-manufactured F-104S-ASA as of this writing.

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Here's something I learned in the last month or so:

The telecommunications provider Sprint used to be a business unit of the Southern Pacific Railroad.(!) Reportedly, "Sprint" really ought to be "SPRINT", for "Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Communications.

According to one source, "[t]he Sprint name dates back to a microwave long-distance network put together by [the] Southern Pacific along its railway lines in [the] 1970s. Called Sprint, for Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Telecommunications, the network was bought by GTE Corp. in 1983."

The Southern Pacific began offering dial-up service (ostensibly long-distance, not internet) in 1978, after the Execunet II decision (citation unknown).

Ack and bother, my favorite cellular provider once belonged to the bloody Southern Pacific! (No, I'm not a fan of red and yellow locomotives, and the GS-4 is inferior to the Norfollk & Western's J series when it comes to discussing the 4-8-4 wheel arrangement.

See here and here for the two articles used as reference; note that their information on the meaning of "SPRINT" conflicts.

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Just in:

Norfolk Southern to assume operations of the Delaware and Hudson from CP Rail (05-04-2004) - Several Norfolk Southern Officials have confirmed that NS will assume operations of the D&H from CP Rail in the near future! How this will affect the immediate Engineers roster is not known at this time. Based on prior acquisitions, assume that the D&H Engineers will be "dove tailed" into the Nickel Plate BT Roster.

Here is what the NS officials have indicated:

* Operations are to be assumed somewhere around September 2004.
* SK Yard to be absorbed and included into the NS Buffalo operations.
* East Binghamton Yard to be assumed into the NS Binghamaton operations.
* NS to operate the Canadian Pacific Freight Main Line between Montreal, Ontario and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania as well as other D&H locations.

This information comes from the current events page of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers & Trainmen, Seneca Division 659.

What does this mean? Well, it means that my favorite modern railway will be reclaiming America's oldest transportation company from the clutches of the Canadians. Interestingly enough, one of Norfolk Southern's corporate predecessors (the Norfolk & Western Railway) once held the reins to the D&H via the DERECO subsidiary, which was set up in the late 1960s as a way to help stabilize the Northeastern railroad situation.

As for the corporate existence of the D&H, I don't know what NSC will do with it. Continuous operations since 1827 or so probably won't mean anything to the gimlet-eyed men and women at 3 Commercial Place (but it might!) and so the future is all black and white for the D&H. This does, however, mean that the NSRy will have improved access to Canada, and that's always a good thing. It ought to improve their position vis-a-vis CSX, whose access to Canada has been better for several years.

I hope it's true, and furthermore, I hope that Norfolk Southern does something positive for the line. Updates as I get 'em.

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The things you find while surfing Google.

I was surfing around trying to find information on the Utah Belt ("for UnBeatable service") fictional model railroad. While doing so, I found word of something called "The John Galt Line", which was also a fictional model railroad. I'm vaguely familiar with the question "Who is John Galt?" being tied to the works of Ayn Rand, and so I figured I'd go check out the JGL.

As it turns out, this particular model railroad has a nicely put-together website, and I figured I'd share it with the readers: The John Galt Line. There you'll find a history of the line, track diagrams, maps, motive power rosters, and the like. There's also an answer to the question of who Mr. Galt is, and I'm amused that it took me several years and a railroad to inadvertantly stumble across it. Yay.

I'll say this: They didn't buy Alco PAs, FAs, or Centuries, so obviously there's something wrong with the Galt Line. I wonder what the nickname would be for it.

UPDATE: I thought about it, and "The Road of Objectivism" doesn't seem to be as cool as "The Road of Anthracite" (i.e. the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western), nor does Ayn Rand make as attractive a symbol as the real Phoebe Snow. On the other hand, "America's Rationalist Railroad" might work, if you fudge things a little. Stolen of course from the late Chicago, St. Paul, Milwaukee & Pacific ("The Milwaukee Road") which billed itself as "America's Resourceful Railroad".

Posted by: Country Pundit at 09:31 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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