Moonlighting

[NW Mailing List]

RE: Moonlighting
Sunday, April 19, 2009 11:26 PM
From: "Sam adams" <samadams at pa.net>
To: "Frank Scheer" <f_scheer at yahoo.com>

Frank,

Thanks for the interesting story about the robberies.

Those guys must not have had much on the ball!  I mean,  they had respectable jobs that paid well and risked them to steal such hot items as sugar!

I'm a fan of 50's sci-fi movies and this reminds me of "Them", in which giant ants were raiding stores and warehouses etc. to feed on sugar.
When they made off with tons of sugar from a box car without being spotted, the night watchman was arrested for being in league with crooks who must have stolen it.  In his own defense he said things like: Who would steal sugar? Is sugar a rare cargo? Ever hear of a fence for sugar?

I never thought I'd hear of a real theft of a large quantity of sugar, but it apparently happened way back then!

I wonder what made the N&W signal department so full of corruption.
Nepotism and buddy system hiring that railroads,  the N&W in particular, were so noted for, was probably a factor.  The baggage and mail handlers must have been able to resist temptation that the signal men could not.
Or were smart enough not to loose their jobs and go to prison over such reckless and petty activity.

The depression hadn't hit yet so that wasn't even an excuse!

Sam    


April 20, 2009

Hello, Sam:

Actually, I think a signal maintainer had a better opportunity than most railroad personnel.  Except when working on a specific emergency, they had a large area to cover, didn't have to be anywhere at a specific time, often worked without supervision, and probably had a car.  This gave them an opportunity to observe traffic and be in towns anytime during day or night without raising suspicion or at least with a plausible alibi for their presence.

Hiding dynamite under Berryville station was a clever location because ordinarily signal staff were the ones who maintained the galvanic batteries used to power the telegraph and telephone apparatus at a station.  There were racks of these near the coal bunker and a wooden crate of explosives nearby probably wouldn't raise much attention.  The agent or other station personnel rarely went to the boiler room except to refill the coal stoker or remove ashes.  I doubt most poked around looking at anything else down there in a room illuminated with a couple of light bulbs.  If the sheriff hadn't been tipped off by the other accomplices, the dynamite might have stayed undetected.

It's likely that the signal maintainer was merely paid a minor share of crime proceeds but never was at a crime scene.  These people only facilitated gang activities but were unlikely to be active participants.

The upper end of the Hagerstown District was a fringe area for the N&W system.  In 1929, it was sufficiently far from Roanoke as well as away from mainline activities to be out-of-sight-and-out-of-mind most of the time.  Shenandoah was the trainmaster's office, so the Berryville area was probably a seldom-visited location except when there was a specific issue warranting attention.

During prohibition, sugar was a great bulk commodity to steal.  What better item to dissolve in water with yeast and ferment?  If it were bought legally by bathtub-gin makers, it would be difficult to explain how it was legitimately used in large quantities.

One never knows where railroad research will lead!

Best wishes,

Frank