#605 in Circleville, Ohio

[NW Mailing List]

Thanks for the comment, Andre. What struck me about that article was the awareness that it was the last steam run, especially considering this wasn’t a terminal town that was impacted directly about motive power choices. 

My assumption (especially considering how much of the article focused on the diesel lease and orders) is that the content was distributed by the railroad. If that’s true, I wonder if the “last steam” context was to show that the railroad was modernizing, or retrospective pride?

Matt Goodman
Columbus, Ohio

> On Oct 12, 2023, at 8:24 PM, NW Mailing List via NW-Mailing-List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
> 
> A nice post, photo and newspaper clipping.
> 
> Yes, in the days when newspaper page-counts and staffs were much larger in the era before competition from TV (and, decades later, the Internet) took hold, RR last runs came in handy to fill the printed page.
> 
> Railroads were so common in American life then that the stories likely proved popular with readers, even as the traveling public’s nostalgia increasingly didn’t extend to filling the remaining varnish runs.
> 
> Andre Jackson
> Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPad <x-msg://91/Sent%20from%20Yahoo%20Mail%20for%20iPad>
> 
> On Thursday, October 12, 2023, 12:56 PM, NW Mailing List via NW-Mailing-List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi everyone. When talking offline with Mike Rector regarding J’s and multiple bearing crossheads, I was reminded of a photo in my collection that I found on a Facebook group about four years ago (for those of you who are Facebookers, the original post is here <https://www.facebook.com/groups/OldPhotosSoOhio/posts/1690872364279921/?__cft__%5B0%5D=AZVwRU3UFpPRmOoCJXfNCD-0o_C97XGEgSvh0KJ9hb7LkYUhGIAew1pS5sTQvEKKOFSkbZqPD8LskieyW__UJcy5BxJvRhoM-c_9-VelOAxOTM9r6Ugmjc1VyFtjk7HkLTLvpg6hdU4r4Itis-1SoZ60&__tn__=,O*F>.). The image is one of the favorites in my collection due to the location in my family’s hometown of Circleville, Ohio. The find reminded me that some interesting stuff can be found in non-railroad groups.
> 
> The photo was shared by a man named John Boylan (for credit purposes), who stated his father took it "around 1950". Photos of passenger trains in Circleville (and the Columbus District more generally) are rare, so I was tickled when I found it. The photo was taken about the same time as passenger service was halved on the Columbus District (and probably the Division as a whole?). My notes from contemporary Circleville Herald articles:
> 
> 6/24/1950 - Herald, Page 1, article headline: N&W Seeking to Halve Rail Service Here
> Trains 35 (Northbound, 10:15pm) and 36 (Southbound, 8:45am) to be discontinued if State Utilities commission approves. Trains 33 (6:41am) and 34 (11:38pm) will remain.
> 
> The headline of a follow up article does a nice job summing up the contemporary feelings about trains: “City Council Shrugs off Train Slash”. When the Mayor asked the Council if they wanted to protest the reduction, a councilman responded with “I move we adjourn”. 
> 
> I’ve also attached an article from the Circleville Herald describing the last steam-powered passenger train in July, 1958. I found it interesting that that event was considered newsworthy.
> 
> Matt Goodman
> 
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