Whale oil delivery to Marion, VA

Wed Aug 22 09:43:31 EDT 2018

Now that you mention it, I remember seeing a whale in a baggage car on the express track in Bristol when I was very young.  Don’t remember any other exhibits although there could have been some.  Don’t remember smelling any dead fish . . .

The original thread gave the impression that it was a single car shipment.

Ed King

From: NW Mailing List 
Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2018 8:15 AM
To: NW Mailing List 
Subject: Re: Whale oil delivery to Marion, VA

Gentlemen,

    The Pacific Whaling Company was a traveling maritime display. It consisted of several convertible flats & gons along with a baggage car/kitchen and sleeper. The star of the show was a @50' dead whale. It was preserved with lots of salt and embalming fluid. Also on board were various stuffed or preserved sea creatures from penguins to sea turtles. A small team of actors pretended they were captains and mates. They told the story of high seas adventures - all made up. Some enjoyed the work so much that they dressed as sea going officers for their remaining careers. For a dime, locals had several days to follow their noses to the display and see the marvels. PWC insisted that their troupe always traveled as an addition to a first class train, or as a special movement on freight only trackage. This endeavor was especially lucrative during the depression, as the outfit set up next to a downtown depot rather than out at the fairgrounds. It was easy for the city dwellers to get to it, which infuriated the other carnivals that were not allowed in center city.

    WJPowers      

On 8/22/2018 7:12 AM, NW Mailing List wrote:

  All I can say is that there were pretty darn few whales located in Elizabethton, Tennessee.  It’s located about thirty miles southeast of Bristol in the heart of the mountains.  It was on the old Virginia and South Eastern part of the Appalachia Division of the Southern Railway and was abandoned some time in the 1930s.  Elizabethton was also on the East Tennessee and Western North Carolina (Eat Taters and Wear No Clothes) that connected with the Southern’s Knoxville Division at Johnson City.  Number 65 was a freight train on the V&SE.

  Ed King                                                                     

  From: NW Mailing List 
  Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2018 10:48 PM
  To: NWHS Mailing List 
  Subject: Whale oil delivery to Marion, VA

  A post on a steam era freight car list this week gave this interesting inquiry:

  "Reading some Dispatcher notes from Southern Railway dated 5/23/32. it reads "No. 65 picked up Pacific Whaling Car 601 from Elizabethton to Bristol in route to Marion, Virginia.  Anyone have a photo of a Pacific Whaling car?  Or know more about this?"

  Subsequent discussions suggest that this was a tank car of whale oil. Any thoughts from our group on this subject? Shipment information, who in Marion might have use for a tank car load of whale oil, etc?

  I am originally from Marion, so this is an exotic and interesting item to me.

  Brent
  ________________________________
  Dr. J. Brent Greer

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