60 Years Ago This Day

[NW Mailing List]

Thanks Ken, excellent retrospective.  Jerry Kay

On Wed, May 6, 2020 at 10:41 AM NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
wrote:

> This day dawned as another typical day in the early spring in southern
> West Virginia. The weather is barely warming up, buds finally appearing on
> the trees after an exceptionally cold winter.
>
> But this day was no typical day, even though no photographers were there
> to record it, it was a historic, sad day for N&W fans.
>
> Just after 8:30 that morning, the Second Pigeon Creek shifter had departed
> west from Williamson, as usual and returned that late afternoon. On the
> next trip, however, things had interminably changed. No longer was a huge
> steam locomotive at the helm of this workaday mine run.
>
> Y6b No. 2190 was scheduled to celebrate her 10th birthday in November, but
> the 2190 looked far older this day, she was shopworn, dirty and sooty. N&W
> maintenance, once a hallmark of operation had really deteriorated in the
> last few years, paint was no longer shiny on the steam locomotives, the
> graphite on the smokeboxes showed signs of rust, number plates now barely
> readable, no longer polished, five years before, that kind of thing never
> seemed to be the case. A lot had changed in the five years, and maybe
> not for the better.
>
> The N&W went from 100 percent steam powered on May 7, 1955 to 100 percent
> diesel powered, it is believed to be the fastest Class One road
> dieselization in the country.
>
> As the 2190 made its way west, in Williamson yard, little S1a No. 291,
> renumbered from 215 at the very end of 1959 to clear the way for diesel
> numbers was also at work sorting cars to head west to the mines or market.
> The No. 291 was even younger than No. 2190, not even reaching her
> 8th birthday barely a week away.
>
> The sun does not shine for long in southern West Virginia, the steep
> mountains block the sun but for a handful of hours a day. Williamson is a
> gritty, railroad town, it existed mainly for the railroad as a
> division point between Bluefield to the east and Portsmouth, Ohio to the
> west. It is a large gathering point for the coal mined in the surrounding
> areas. It is almost fitting that the remaining steam locomotives are at
> the terminal that the majority of the business is what fueled them; coal.
>
> Steam retreated quickly, the first diesels were ordered for the Durham
> district (Lynchburg, VA to Durham, NC), ostensibly to release big steam for
> service elsewhere, but it brought the camel’s nose under the tent, and soon
> unleashed the flood. District by district steam fell, Durham,
> Shenandoah, Cincinnati, Columbus, Radford. Finally steam by late fall,
> steam was now concentrated only to the state of West Virginia.
>
> Late that afternoon, 2190 trundled back to town, its crew probably unaware
> that this would be the last time they’d be burning coal to haul coal. The
> 291 had been turned over to a new crew, who may not have realized their
> role in history on Second Trick and continued to work.
>
> By the time the Second Trick crew returned to mark off at midnight, a
> midnight crew was ready to go to work with one of those new diesels. The
> hostler took the 291, tender with barely any coal left, and worked his way
> to the ashpit for one last time. The fire was unceremoniously
> dumped, leaving enough steam in the boiler to carry the soon to be dead 291
> to a spot where she’d slowly leak out the remaining lifeblood. The yard
> crew would soon couple the 291 to the 2190 on the end of the deadline of
> other steam power, ending a tradition on the N&W and railroading in general
> that went back well over a century.
>
> I wrote and posted this on the N&WHS facebook page this morning.
>
> The next Arrow, at the printer as we speak, will feature the end of steam
> anniversary as the cover photo and several articles.
>
> Ken Miller
>
>
>
>
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