N&W in 1912--Coal shipments

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Bluefield Daily Telegraph
Fri., March 22, 1912

COAL SHIPMENTS NOT UP TO FEBRUARY MARK
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Considerable Increase Over March of Last Year, However--Railroad's Good Record
    With the opening of spring weather today the April contract season will loom up and today at New York the bids for the Panama Canal coal contracts will be opened. The government, according to rumor, is prepared to pay an increased price for coal this year.
    Just at this time the car supply is increasing, but the Norfolk and Western shipments for the month are about 75,000 tons behind last month, and indications are that March will not show much over 1,630,000 tons, which will he a reduction of over 100,000 from last month's figures. This however, will be a considerable increase over March of last year, which was a very light month; due to prices and other conditions.
    There has been so much frost during the past winter that railroading will be serious business during the remainder of March. and during the April showers because the ground is ready to be washed away and this means delays in transportation, wrecks, slides and many other things which prevent quick shipments of coal.  What effect this will have on the tidewater business remains to be seen, but with an increased freight rate in the west it will make a bad combination.
    During the winter the Pocahontas division of the Norfolk and Western, on which twenty millions of tons of coal and coke were originated during the last calendar year, was not delayed for a minute by a frozen engine, which is a remarkable record. Everyone on the division from the smaller mechanic to the highest official worked to get the best service possible and it was secured and even the operators are loud in their praise of the Norfolk and Western way of running a railroad, even though a car shortage did occur and seriously worry the road. This shortage occurred at the western connections and was not the fault of the Norfolk and Western, which road has been seriously handicapped by other railroads seizing its cars and hampering deliveries and cars. Some roads were restrained from using the Norfolk and Western cars because of their delays in returning them.
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Gordon Hamilton
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