House Car Run (NW Mailing List)

Mon Mar 27 11:52:17 EDT 2023

The westbound Phoebe Turn used the old main line, going west from Percival’s Island usually an hour or so after No.26 (Powhatan Arrow) went east. I assume that it went east on the belt line through Kinney. Can anyone confirm this?

   Ray Smoot
Sent from my iPad

On Mar 27, 2023, at 11:30 AM, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:

Abram and Tim,

I appreciate your replies re the Norfolk Division's House Car Run. I have been wondering about this train for almost fifty years. I first became aware of it while reading the liner notes on the back of O. Winston Link's album, Thunder on Blue Ridge. He included a footnote regarding the album's cover photo, Highball for the Doubleheader, that states "This is the N&W "House Car Run" on rainy April 18, 1959 - 3:40 AM". This late night photo is so spectacular, and so late in steam, that I wanted to know what was meant by a "House Car Run". Both of you have helped answer that question.

I have since found a few addition resources that shed more light on the "House Car Run".

James B. Scott, N&W Norfolk Division engineer, writes in the May/June, 2000 issue of The Arrow, "... there were three trains that set off cars in Lynchburg. First was the Phoebe Turn, then later that evening was #92, and after midnight, the House Car Run. We would pick up our clearance card and orders at the 16th Street yard office, along with the head brakeman."

Also, the December, 1957 N&W Freight Time Tables shows:

'Phoebe Turn' - Lv. Roanoke 5:00 PM, and Ar. Lynchburg 8:00 PM.

Train 92 - Lv. Roanoke 8:15 PM, and Ar. Lynchburg 10:30 PM.

'House Car Run' - Lv. Roanoke 11:00 PM, and Ar. Lynchburg at 2:00 AM, and continuing on to Ar. Crewe 6:00 AM.

The Norfolk Division was a busy piece of railroad!

It's a testimony to NWHS members and resources that this obscure question can still be answered some 64 years after Mr. Link took this photograph.

John Garner, Newport, VA.

Herr Garner asketh about the term "House Car Run" which appeared the other day on the List.

I was a little surprised when I saw that reference, John, as I had not heard or thought about  that term in almost 60 years.

A good answer is one which furnishes context for the terms and the situations, so here goes.

First, HOUSE CAR.  House Car was the very old name for a box car.  If you read the literature of the 1860s and 1870s, box cars were carried on the railroad equipment inventories as House Cars.

Second, HOUSE CAR RUN.  Roanoke used to run a daily train to Lynchburg which carried cars destined to Lynchburg.  Moving Lynchburg cars on a dedicated train saved stopping through freights (maybe several of them) to set off and pick up.  My guess is that the crew on the House Car Run turned at Lynchburg and brought a train back to Roanoke, but this is only a guess.

The House Car Run is not shown as a numbered, schedule train, so it very likely operated as an Extra, but only a check of Time Tables would clarity that.  Nor do I know what time the House Car Run was generally put on duty at Roanoke.

Nor do I know when the House Car Run ceased to run, but the discontinuance of that train was no doubt due to a drop in traffic originating and terminating at Lynchburg.  During the years I was working out of Roanoke (1964-1979) a Phoebe Turn was operated, but there was no House Car Run.

Like most railroads of any size, the N&W published (for internal use) a document called Freight Train Classifications for Yards and Terminals, usually referred to in the vernacular as the "Freight Schedule Book" even though it did not contain schedules.  It contained directives for how each train was to be blocked. This book contained the "plan" by which the Superintendent of Transportation wanted his railroad run.

The April 25, 1939 edition of this book (which I think I have through the generosity of Dr. Scheer) shows the House Car Run.  The page reads:

ROANOKE to CREWE.  HOUSE CAR RUN.[cid:E801D9F7-35C9-48EA-97BA-132BB8353A52][cid:F325A6D8-2D1E-4525-BCF4-E8F6AFDC7A05]________________________________________
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