Traffic Representatives: What Was the Story Behind Them ?

[NW Mailing List]

Today someone sent me a photocopy of a 1967 N&W Passenger Time Table, and I took a gander at something nobody ever paid attention to - the listing of company Traffic Representatives.

About 69 Representatives of the Traffic Department are shown, under these job titles: District Sales Manager, Sales Manager, Traffic Manager, Assistant Traffic Manager, Perishable Sales Representative and Passenger Sales Representative.

These fellows were scattered as far away as Montreal, Toronto, New Haven, Los Angeles, Green Bay, Denver, Tulsa, Phoenix, Minneapolis, Portland Oregon &c.

The on-line public face of the Traffic Department consisted of W.L. Butt at Bristol, R.E. Foster at Durham, W.O. Robinson at Norfolk, W.J. Deans Jr at Lynchburg, J.E. McCabe at Petersburg, C.R. Ford at Winston-Salem, and W.C. Pittman and W. Allen Thurman at Roanoke (both headquartered in the passenger station.) I have never heard any of these names before, so my guess is that the Traffic Department was rather much a "self-contained" operation, where people stayed within the department.

So, this leads to my QUESTION ... HOW did the railroad fill Traffic Representative vacancies at far-flung places like Phoenix, Portland Oregon, and the Canadian jobs?

My guess is the railroad hired people already located in those cities, men who already knew the commercial situation (re manufacturers, shippers &c) in those areas. Should the railroad send out a home-grown Virginia boy for one of those jobs, it would take him some years to get a good "handle" on the commercial situation and the players on the field, before he could become effective. These fellows did not just sit in the office and answer the phone, you know -- they pounded the pavement looking for car load sales.

So... Just how did all this work? Where did the outlying Traffic Representatives come from? Perhaps the only man on this List who may have the answers is the Hon. James Blackstock, retired from said Department and now Mayor of Smith Mountain Lake, Va and Traffic Representative in Greater Metropolitan Chamblissburg.  Speak up, James... !

      -- abram burnett
Dabbler... Especially in Turnips