Steam Doubleheaders

[NW Mailing List]

Herb,

I don't know much about the freight traffic on the Durham line in the 
1950s when I worked in the shop as a laborer, mainly because the freight 
trains operated into and out of Duke Yard, a couple of miles from the 
shop.  We only saw the locos at the shop.  I know that cigarettes from 
the Durham tobacco factories constituted an important outbound cargo if 
not a high volume cargo.

Also, I don't know how long it took to service a Class Y, or any other 
class, because we seldom just stuck with one locomotive from beginning 
to end even if I could remember it at this late date. For example, over 
a couple of hours in late afternoon we would get the local yard loco 
(initially a Class M, later years a Class S1), the local freight loco 
from Lynchburg (typically a Class Z1x), the passenger train loco from 
Lynchburg (a Class K), and possibly one or more Class Yx locos on thru 
freight trains from Lynchburg.  We would move each to a vacant servicing 
spot as best as we could because the shop was not laid out in the most 
efficient manner. It consisting of four stub-end tracks with a different 
servicing spot on each track, except the water tank was located between 
the inspection pit track and the combined coaling and sanding spot track 
and serviced both tracks.  The hostler would operate the loco from a 
servicing spot on one track to a servicing spot on another track while I 
would ride along and throw the switches for him (and on many happy 
occasions after I had been there for a while an understanding hostler 
would let me operate the locomotive while he rode along and threw the 
switches for me!).  Once a loco had been placed on one of the servicing 
spots, I would do my laborer thing (open the ash pan discharge door and 
use compressed air to blow ashes out of the ash pan as the hostler shook 
the grates, shoot the rods full of grease and lubricate the valve gear 
while the machinist and helper did their thing, ran the coaling skip 
hoist and sanding pressure tank while the hostler moved the loco as 
necessary for the skip hoist to fill the entire length of the coal space 
on the tender, and tended fire and water on all idled locos).  If I were 
forced to furnish an estimate of how long it took to service a Class Yx 
loco some 60 years back in my memory, I would pull two hours "off the 
top of my head."

Gordon Hamilton

On 2/6/2021 8:03 AM, NW Mailing List via NW-Mailing-List wrote:
> Gordon
> I feel for you guys in the shops. How much time did you all have to 
> service & turn the “Y’s”?  Sounds like a lot of tonnage moving between 
> Lynchburg & Durham during those years.  This was pre-Hyco & Mayo coal 
> movements.  Do you remember what the freight consist was that would 
> require so much motive power? Was it mostly overhead traffic to be 
> interchanged or mostly destined to N&W served customers?
> My uncle, R. G. Robertson was the station master @ Woodsdale. My 
> earliest memories were of watching the sets Alcos roll by with mixed 
> freight in the late ‘50’s (missed steam daggonnit!).
> Thanks
> Herb Edwards
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>> On Feb 6, 2021, at 5:49 AM, NW Mailing List 
>> <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
>>
>> 
>>
>> I worked as a laborer in the N&W Durham shop the summers of 1954-56 
>> and I heard much mention of a "Winfall pusher.  This pusher assisted 
>> freight trains out of Lynchburg's Island Yard, up the stiff 2.6 
>> percent grade to 12th Street and on another 16 miles to Winfall where 
>> so-named pushers cut off to go back to Island Yard.  Some pushers, 
>> however, continued on the train all of the way to Durham.  These were 
>> Y class steam locomotives and when two came in on a train it put 
>> quite a strain on us laborers and other crafts in that small, 
>> sparsely-equipped shop to get them serviced.  You can imagine what we 
>> felt on one memorable day when a train came from Lynchburg with 
>> double-headed Ys on the head end and a Y pusher on the rear--all of 
>> which needed servicing!
>>
>> Gordon Hamilton
>>
>> On 2/5/2021 1:49 PM, NW Mailing List via NW-Mailing-List wrote:
>>> Quite often, in steam days, time freights were pushed all the way 
>>> from Roanoke to Winston-Salem. Even, in the diesel era, Belews Creek 
>>> coal trains are pushed on the Punkin Vine.
>>>
>>> Dick Kimball
>>>
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