Virginian Coal Cars

[NW Mailing List]

Lots of VGN cars were still around when I was in Sandusky in 1980-81. Many a night, I’d help the yard clerk from having to walk the departure yard in adverse weather. We’d sit in the company car at a road crossing between the coal dock and the yard and as the cut went past us, I’d call the car numbers while he wrote them down.

-- 
Larry Stone
lstone19 at stonejongleux.com





> On Aug 7, 2020, at 9:00 AM, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
> 
> I will add what I know for sure and what I believe, while we wait for the guys who really know this stuff to chirp in.
> 
> The Virginian and the N&W merged in 1959; this was the culmination of several prior attempts by the N&W to take over the Virginian.
> It was considered at that time one of the first of the modern mergers of parallel-competing lines.
> Because of supply contracts, traffic, and car shortages I suspect, but do not know, that some Virginian coal cars did get routed to Norfolk over the N&W for unloading.  And vice versa.  Prior to the merger.
> After the merger there were bocoo VGN cars on the N&W, and vice versa.  For some things the Virginian lettering got painted out right away.  For some things the Virginian stuff got sold off or scrapped quite rapidly.(too rapidly according to some of the Virginian brethren; another topic better over beverages).
> There was no rush about repainting the hoppers.  I had thought there might be equipment trusts involved, but a more knowledgeable railroader told me that that was not at issue; they just didn't repaint the cars until they needed to.
> Some of the hoppers hung around for years in the Virginian lettering.  I believe I saw a hopper lettered for Virginian in Columbus in 1984--24 years after the merger.
> 
> Frank Bongiovanni
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Aug 5, 2020 at 9:50 PM NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
> Jack;  good question.  The answer is YES!!
> 
> But I'm going to defer to some of the guys who worked for the railroad during or near the period in question(Hi Harry, Gordon, Abram and bunch of you who were a lot closer to the area than I was then)to provide a more complete and more knowledgeable explanation.
> 
> Frank Bongiovanni 
> 
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPad
> 
> On Aug 5, 2020, at 11:32 AM, NW Mailing List via NW-Mailing-List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
> 
>>  
>> It seems to me that as a boy, I saw a lot of Virginian coal cars, along with N&W coal cars, being pulled into Norfolk during the late 50s and early 60s.  Do I remember this correctly?  Did N&W also pull a lot of Virginian coal cars?
>> 
>>  
>> Thanks,
>> 
>> Jack Fletcher​
>> 
>> 
>> 
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