Farewell to Steam on the N&W

[NW Mailing List]

I spoke to a man a while back who was an engineer on the Winston Salem line.  He told me he happened to be in Bluefield one day (the reason why escapes me) and Mr. Saunders made a visit to the shops while he was there.  When he saw a K2a that was stored in the roundhouse he told whoever was in charge that the next time he paid a visit that "nasty hunk of junk" had better not be there.  So I believe based on that, Mr. Saunders had no love for steam which I think also helped with their quick demise! 


----- Original Message ----
From: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
To: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
Sent: Sunday, July 6, 2008 8:27:05 PM
Subject: Re: Farewell to Steam on the N&W

I believe the problem was that replacement parts were no longer 
manufactured at least that was what I was told at the time, along 
with PRR pressure.

                              HB Lyon


At 07:50 PM 7/6/2008, you wrote:

>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

>________________________________________

>NW-Mailing-List at nwhs.org

>To change your subscription go to

>http://list.nwhs.org/mailman/options/nw-mailing-list

>Browse the NW-Mailing-List archives at

>http://list.nwhs.org/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/



________________________________________
NW-Mailing-List at nwhs.org
To change your subscription go to
http://list.nwhs.org/mailman/options/nw-mailing-list
Browse the NW-Mailing-List archives at
http://list.nwhs.org/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/attachments/20080706/58629319/attachment-0001.html>