ACL Passenger Service

[nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org]

Mr. Sellers, this discussion is all well and good, but railroads aren't 
using steam engines any more for haul anything. The discussion is moot.

Thanks

Warren Bain



nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org wrote:


>Don't you just have to love it!    I dropped that little tid-bit about the N&W

>J class locomotive just to get a rise out of you  N&W buffs, and you didn't

>let

>me down.  O.K. fellows, you can put aside your slide rules, etc. as I could

>care less how a J stacks up against an ACL  1800.   The mechanical

>departments of the ACL and the RF&P were not all dummies. They knew

>what they wanted in the way of power for high-speed passenger service.

>Indeed, the preponderance of motive power on the RF&P was assigned to

>passenger service, and their 4-8-4's were carbon copies of the ACL  R-1's.

>The ACL and the  RF&P chose not to limit the speed of their passenger

>trains by using 70 inch drivers. I stand by my original statement that

>compared to the ACL, passenger business on the N&W was meager at

>best.  The ACL was  a speed merchant, along with the PRR, the RF&P,

>and the FEC  whisking those snowbirds up north down to Florida, which was a

>1,000 mile trip covered in about 25 hours. When I was in passenger

>service on the ACL we routinely had a scheduled running time of two

>hours and 40 minutes to cover that 172 miles between South Rocky Mount

>and Florence, S.C. And many is the time we have covered it in two hours

>and 30 minutes flat.  That's 172 miles in  150 minutes with a better than 60

>MPH average, including a stop in Fayetteville, N.C. , and possibly Wilson.

>About the only location on the entire N&W  that permits over 60 MPH

>running is that flat tangent between Petersburg and Norfolk.  And yes,

>Harry, there is more potential for fatalities on a road that carries ten times

>the passenger traffic as does the N&W.   While enumerating accidents on the

>ACL, you overlooked a little matter  in July 1943 when No. 7 plowed into

>the rear of No. 1, the East Coast Champion, in Milan Yard in Fayetteville

>telescoping the rear car on No. 1 with about 12  fatalities.  And where did

>you get your information about No. 8 hitting a broken rail in that incident

>at Buie, N.C. ?  Yes, No. 91 derailed account of a broken rail, and a

>couple of sleeping cars were fouling the northbound mainline.  The fireman on

>No. 91  was Joe Batchelor, who followed me on the seniority roster. He

>failed to provide proper flagging per Rule 99, and No. 8 being run by

>engineer Frank Belknap was at a track speed of about 80 MPH when he

>plowed into the sleepers which is where the most of the fatalities occured.

>Joe couldn't live with the guilt, and later took hi own life.   When my

>best friend fireman Charlie Hunt was killed in April 1953, he was on No.

>2 the East Coast Champion when they hit a cocked facing point switch at

>Maple Siding just south of Dillon, S.C. while running at a track speed of

>90  MPH.   When it came to getting over the road on passenmger trains,

>don't even mention the N&W and the ACL in the same breath.  Think about

>what the RF&P had to accomplish.  Not only did they handle 6 or 8 ACL

>name trains in each direction and their extra sections which could amount

>to 3 or even 4 sections, they also had to handle all the trains of the

>Seaboard

>between Richmond and Washington.  Everything was not peaches and

>cream on the N&W either. I have a mental picture of a photo I saw

>somewhere of a J class locomotive being pulled out orf the Tug Fork River.

>Anyone with half a brain knows that comparing passenger service on the

>N&W and the ACL is comparing apples and oranges. Bill Sellers.

>

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