Bill Harman Answers Questions in 1981

[NW Mailing List]

Good info.My father James Walter Woolwine also worked on the Radford
Division retiring 30 Nov.1958 after 55 years of N&W service.I have him
displayed in The Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke.Anyone
interested in his career can contact me at sew31vmi at gmail.com I was born
and raised in Abingdon, Va.and Mr.Wells was the dispatcher there when I was
growing up.

On Fri, Apr 5, 2013 at 6:55 AM, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>wrote:


>  In 1981, I was contemplating making a tape recording simulating the

> Radford Division Train Dispatcher’s Telegraph Wire for a 24 hour

> period.  The goal was to use an actual Time Table from the 1890-1906 time

> period, take all OS’s from open telegraph offices, and  issue all Train

> Orders and Clearance Cards  necessary for the movement of trains.  Some

> trains would have been operated in sections, and actual tonnage ratings of

> the engines in use during that time period would have been used.  I went so

> far as to determine the light weights of freight cars then typically in

> use, and their typical capacities.

>

>

>

> Like many overly ambitious projects in life, this one never came to

> fruition.

>

>

>

> During my research for the simulation, it was necessary to consult Bill

> Harman, a 1940-hire N&W Radford Division telegrapher about certain

> procedural items, specifically the format for OS’s used on the N&W in

> telegraph days,  the N&W practices on “middle orders,” and the N&W

> practices on “the clearing of trains” (i.e. issuing Clearance Cards to

> trains for which there were and were not Train Orders for delivery,

> etc.)  I sent 12 typewritten questions to Bill, and he responded to ten of

> them.  Bill's father had also been a Radford Division telegrapher  and he

> acquired a great deal of information from him concerning the earlier

> history of the railroad.

>

>

>

> Recently I ran across Bill Harman’s responses, written in June 1981.  They

> were written in pencil, so the scans had to be cleaned up quite a bit to

> make them legible.  One of his answers (Question 8 on page 3) was continued

> on the back side of the paper.

>

>

> A PDF of Bill's hand-written responses is attached.  Where else would you

> ever learn that there was at one time a Yardmaster at Arthur? !!!

>

>

> -- abram burnett

>

>

>  Moderator:

> http://nwhs.org/mailinglist/20130405.Burnett.pdf

>

>

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