N&W 7902 - Expanded to a Question about NKP & Wabash

Sat May 25 22:00:24 EDT 2019

Bill - 

That rather graphic imagery is intended to display for all to see the displeasure felt by Mr. Burnett toward the post-Robert Hall Smith Norfolk and Western.  Smith was the President who retired in 1957 and who was replaced by Stuart Thomas Saunders, an ambitious man who wanted to become the president of the largest railroad in the country, the Penn Central, and did so, with disastrous results.

The Richard Freeman Dunlap referred to ran the railroad after a time, and evidently his work was displeasing to Mr. Burnett.  I’m sure that it was displeasing to the Wabush and NKP folks, but being the “mergees” is never an easy thing.  I’m certain that nothing the N&W did after that merger would have been pleasing to the WAB/NKP folks.  And I’m equally sure that none of them was asked whether they wanted to “get in bed” with the N&W.  

Hope this helps.

- Ed King

From: NW Mailing List via NW-Mailing-List 
Sent: Saturday, May 25, 2019 5:18 PM
To: nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org 
Cc: NW Mailing List 
Subject: Re: N&W 7902 - Expanded to a Question about NKP & Wabash

Please provide some clarification.  I'm confused.  Exactly what is meant by the phrase, Richard Freeman Dunlap riding his Black Horse of Death onto the scene? 

Bill King
Arlington, Virginia

-----Original Message-----
From: NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
To: N&W Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
Sent: Sat, May 25, 2019 1:54 pm
Subject: Re: N&W 7902 - Expanded to a Question about NKP & Wabash

Mr. Bundy -

You were a "boots on the ground" man, so your take on things is highly valued.

You wrote:

>>>
On the Dekrater and Moberly Divisions, there was a signal arrangement ID'ed as Manual Block - Remote Control.  Wabash dispatchers could give a signal to enter a siding, but the train crew had to manually align the turnout.  This system of controlling train movement became known as "Morphodite Traffic Control". 
<<<

I always perceived both the Nickel Plate and the Wabash as being first class, high-speed, classy, good operations before the N&W management got hold of them, single tracked them and made a disaster out of them both.

You know the true story, so please tell us.  What were the NKP and the Wabash really like before the N&W's Richard Freeman Dunlap rode his Black Horse of Death onto the scene?  It would also be interesting to know why those two roads would ever want to get in bed with the N&W, given the N&W's reputation for people like Saunders and Dunlap.  Shucks, those two roads did not even connect with the N&W, so where were the imagined synergies?

  -- abram burnett,
only a turnip farmer

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