Information for N&W Railway Post Office presentation at the convention

[nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org]

February 16, 2006

Good afternoon!

As you may know from reading the 2006 convention
information, I'll make a presentation about Railway
Post Office (RPO) routes that operated over the
pre-1961 N&W lines.  The presentation will include a
monograph I am writing that compiles information about
these routes.

One thing I wanted to include was a good 1930s N&W
system map, similar to what one might find in an
Official Guide.  When I pulled an issue to scan,
however, I realized that spine curvature on the pages
prevents a good conversion to a picture.  After all,
Roanoke is smack dab in the middle.  If anyone has a
high resolution system map --the style that has lots
of town names listed along the lines-- would they
please contact me off-list at f_scheer at yahoo.com? 
I'll credit the source, of course, and the map will
only be used for this project.  My intention is to cut
segments of the map to visually depict the route along
with a RPO traveled.

I'd also welcome a volunteer or two to read the
narrative that I'm drafting.  It will aid me greatly
to have other people provide feedback about the
content and how the information is organized.  I'll
exclude the graphics files from those drafts, since
they will make the file size unmanageable as an email
attachment.

Finally, many N&W historians haven't visited the
Hagerstown District or examined its operations.  I'll
have an "open house" at Boyce station before and after
the convention dates so people traveling along I-81
can learn more about the northern-most corner of the
N&W.  I've spoken with the community group that now
owns the renovated Shepherdstown station.  Ordinarily,
it is closed on weekends and only a dentist's office
in the station is open on weekdays.  If convention
attendees think they may want to stop by Shepherdstown
going to or coming from Strasburg, please let me know.
 I'll see if there's sufficient interest in asking the
group to have the station open for visitation on
Wednesday, Thursday, and/or Sunday.

Looking forward to seeing many of the faces behind the
names on this list in July....

Best wishes,

Frank Scheer
f_scheer at yahoo.com