station pict ( No. 8 Eng 126 at Lynchburg, 6-26-1950 )

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One other thing about this photo caught my interest:

Focus in behind the train looking west. It appears that a switching action may be in progress. I know that express cars were sometimes set off (or added on) at Lynchburg during this era but can’t determine if that is what is happening in the photo.

   Ray Smoot

Sent from my iPad

> On Nov 27, 2023, at 8:19 PM, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
> 
> Thanks to all who contributed to developing information on the photo of Train No. 8, Eng 126, at Lynchburg, June 26, 1950. May I call your attention to two things? :
> 
> 1. Note the Blue Flag stuck into a flag holder on the Engineman's side, at the level of the first step above the pilot beam. Can't find it? Look at the windshield of the old coupe automobile, and you will see the flag. (I saw a passenger train leave Roanoke one day with "the Blue" still attached to the engine ! As the story went, the Engineman saw it as they were approaching Blue Ridge. A brief stop was made and the Fireman retrieved it. The firebox was a good place for destroying evidence...)
> 
> 2. Notice that both the eastbound and the westbound high signals in this photo have a "B" arm equipped to display three lamps in a horizontal row. That was one early arrangement of lamps on the N&W's early Position Light Signals. Indications using "stop in the bottom arm" are shown in the red 1950 (?) Rule Book.
> 
> There is an N&W publicity photo taken at Villamont showing this arrangement. And the N&W's circa-1950 16mm movie, Fast Freight, shows brief glimpses of several of these signals on the Pocahontas Division. Hopefully someday old correspondence will come to light and explain why the N&W used these "double stop" signal indications, and when and why they switched away from them.
> 
> (The obbious reason behind this type indication is that the signal engineers were using rows of lamps to replicate the positions of the old semaphore arms. There also exists at least one photograph of an N&W PL signal which had three complete arms, each represented by a full-circle background. In the photograph, all three arms are lit at STOP... AND there is a single-lamp "Marker Light" under all of these. If anyone wants the photo, perhaps I can find it.)
> 
> -- abram burnett
> Virtuoso Turnips in D-Flat Major, Brio con Tempestuoso
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