Farewell to Steam on the N&W

[NW Mailing List]

On Sun, Jul 6, 2008 at 6:02 PM, Mike Weeks wrote:

> I've often wondered how Stuart Saunders really felt about steam locomotives.

> Obviously he wanted to "modernize" the N&W, but did he actually despise

> steam power, or was he just impatient to get the N&W dieselized ASAP to

> catch up with the rest of the country?


It would take a little digging through several boxes to find the various indexes
to "Trains" magazine, but I seem to remember an article about this issue.
William Middleton (perhaps?) speculated that the fast dieselization of the
N&W was at the insistence of the Pennsylvania Railroad. The push was to
increase the value of N&W stock before the PRR unloaded its shares in
an effort to improve its cash flow.

If someone remembers this article or perhaps can expand on this idea,
please have at it.

Bruce in Blacksburg