N&W coach in Hopewell destroyed

[NW Mailing List]

I was just in Hopewell tonight for the Model RR club meeting and  
looked over under sixth street bridge to glance at the N&W coach and  
noticed that it had ben completely burned out! The fire was apparently  
so hot that the roof was collapsed. The car was donated to a group in  
Petersburg headed by Dick Whiting. They eventually got Jack Showalter  
who ran the Virginia Central to take the car and put it into service  
on his excursion train in Staunton.
However the car would not pass interchange inspection due to a cracked  
sideframe. So it sat in the CSX yard for years until it was recently  
moved back to NS.  Some vandals set it on fire a few days ago. Now its  
only good for scrap!

Walt