Classic Train Questions Part Deux (50 Years or Older)

[daveklepper]

Next question please!

[henry6]

In the 50's my father would have to go into Easton, PA from North Jersey and in the summer my brother and I would tag along...we'd brown bag lunch and go to the LV station and eat while watching the westbound Diamond and the eastbound Leaf...

Pic you posted, Mike, is of the FA's and not the PA's....but both were impresseve and brute looking and actually did yeoman service for the LV.

[wanswheel]

Adkdivfan, yes your turn. PRR pulled the trains in from Newark after 1917. The Black Diamond was the flagship. The Star and one other train, the Major, also went to Buffalo.  Asa Packer founded the railroad, his train went to Wilkes-Barre, as did the John Wilkes, who Wilkes-Barre is partly named for. The Maple Leaf was more or less a Canadian National train.  I wish I had a picture of the Black Diamond on Alco power.

http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/lv530a.jpg

Mike

Edit: some PA's for Henry

http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/images/adaccess/T/T29/T2951/T2951-med.jpeg

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/lv/lv607as.jpg

http://www.northeast.railfan.net/images/lv612.jpg

http://www.lvrr.com/index.php?album=%2FB-LV%20Diesel%20Engines%2F&image=LV-608_Stripless.jpg&resize=800x800

http://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/7/3/0/4730.1166025600.jpg

[adkdivfan]

Asa Packer, John Wilkes, Black Diamond, Maple Leaf, Star

[wanswheel]

Name 5 trains of the Lehigh Valley Railroad at Penn Station in New York.

Bob, I sure don't know if the Alabama Dept. of Archives & History page is more reliable than your source. Perhaps he could have caught the M&O at Meridian.  The line from Vicksburg looks about complete (as of June 1861) on the CSA Railroads map. In any case, Davis wrote of waiting for a train in Jackson, which jibes better with northbound unless he stopped there for a purposeful visit and not just to change trains.

http://www.csa-railroads.com/images/Western%20Railroads.pdf

http://www.csa-railroads.com/images/Eastern%20Railroads.pdf

Mike

[AWP290]

Johnny -

I concede that Mike's source is probably more accurate than mine (see my earlier post.)  My source says he rode the M&O to Corinth, MS.  The M&O was completed between Mobile and Columbus, KY, just prior to the outbreak of hostilities and was opened as far as Corinth some time before that, so it was an available, if not utilized, route.

Mike's question.

Bob

[AWP290]

Mike -

My source, Railroads of the Confederacy, by John Stover, says that Davis rode the Mobile & Ohio RR from Mobile to Corinth.

If you have a more reliable source, so be it.

Your question, sir.

 Bob

[wanswheel]

Months ago Mark asked, "What railroad is recognized as the first standard gauge road in the deep south and what were its end point terminals?" (West Feliciana RR from Woodville to Bayou Sara). I remember a map of that. Squinting real hard at the words on a peninsula just south of New Carthage, Louisiana, it says "Col. Joe Davis" and "Jefferson Davis" and "hurricane." That was where Brierfield was. Second link is a short biography with info about Brierfield and Beauvoir.

http://www.usgwarchives.org/maps/louisiana/statemap/msrmilbdtobatonrouge1862.jpg

http://mshistory.k12.ms.us/articles/287/jefferson-davis-1808-1889

Photo of Union soldiers at Brierfield

http://www.oldcourthouse.org/APhotographicTour_files/image045.jpg

Photo of Jefferson Davis

http://memory.loc.gov/service/pnp/cph/3b30000/3b39000/3b39000/3b39000r.jpg

[Deggesty]

Bob, even though I knew that Beauvoir came into Jefferson Davis' possession after the War, I did not think of it until Mike posted his comment. Still, it was not easy to get from Warren county, Mississippi, to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1861. Today, you just get on I-20, whiz over to Alabama, and then take US 80 into Montgomery. I'm not up on what railroads were extant then--but even in our time, there was no direct passenger service from Meridian to Montgomery, and the bridge road, Meridian and Bigbee River has come upon hard times. But, you have the right idea: what route did the only President of the Confederacy travel to get to his inauguration?

Johnny

[wanswheel]

Bob, Jefferson Davis says in his book, The Rise And Fall of the Confederate Government, that his home in 1861 was Brierfield in Warren County. The location was known as Davis Bend, I guess about 20 miles south of Vicksburg. At some point around 1867, the Mississippi changed course, causing Davis Bend on the Mississippi side of the river to become Davis Island on the Louisiana side, but it remains in the state of Mississippi. The Brierfield house burned down in 1931 and the island is now wild for hunting deer.

Mike

[AWP290]

Mike -

You've got the idea - the route was highly circuituous. 

Close, but no cigar. 

 Remember, Biloxi is on the Mississippi Gulf coast.  He did travel by horse (or carriage) for the first leg of his journey. 

 Bob

[wanswheel]

It seems Jefferson Davis "rowed to the middle of the Mississippi River, flagged a steamboat and rode it to Vicksburg." Then his journey evidently continued something like this:

Southern RR of Mississippi, Vicksburg to Jackson

Mississippi Central RR, Jackson to Grand Junction, Tenn.

Memphis & Charleston RR, Grand Junction to Chattanooga

Western & Atlantic RR, Chattanooga to Atlanta

Atlanta & West Point RR, Atlanta to West Point

Montgomery & West Point RR, West Point to Montgomery

http://www.alabamamoments.alabama.gov/sec14det.html

How he got to the river I do not know. Probably horse power.

Mike

[AWP290]

It was said - I suppose in jest - at the time that the Pennsy was chosen because of its red (Tuscan) cars.

In a similar vain, here's another routing question:

What route did Jefferson Davis take from his home in Biloxi, MS, to his inauguration as President of the Confederate States of America in Montgomery, AL, in 1861.  (Hint - it wasn't as easy as it might sound, and he did travel by train, at least 95% of the time.)

 Bob Hanson, Loganville, GA

[wanswheel]

Bob, yes your turn.  Washington to New York and Los Angeles to San Francisco.

[AWP290]

The Pennsylvania Railroad and the Southern Pacific.

 Bob Hanson, Loganville, GA

[wanswheel]

Which two American railroads did Khrushchev ride in 1959?

Mike

[Deggesty]

ZephyrOverland

That's the train I was looking for.  The New York-Pinehurst Carolina Golfer ran for two seasons, 1929-1930 and 1930-1931.  I was not aware about the NS operation from Southern Pines to Pinehurst since the contemporary ads in the Official Guide show it as a SAL operation

I failed to really examine the timetables yesterday before I pointed out that the train used the NS track to get into Pinehurst. The junction was at Aberdeen, not Southern Pines--and the cars were carried on a scheduled NS train 6.1 miles to Pinehurst. This was a daily, except Sunday train that ran between Aberdeen and Asheboro. The NS TT also shows a Sunday only train between Aberdeen and Pinehurst that carried the cars on that day. So, NS crews may well have operated the trains when on the NS track.

Johnny

[ZephyrOverland]

wanswheel

There was a New York to Pinehurst train called the Carolina Golfer during the 1929-30 winter season. 

 

That's the train I was looking for.  The New York-Pinehurst Carolina Golfer ran for two seasons, 1929-1930 and 1930-1931.  I was not aware about the NS operation from Southern Pines to Pinehurst since the contemporary ads in the Official Guide show it as a SAL operation.

Wanswheel - it's your turn to ask a question.

[Deggesty]

wanswheel

There was a New York to Pinehurst train called the Carolina Golfer during the 1929-30 winter season. 

I just looked at the SAL and NS schedules in the January, 1930, issue of the Guide, and found that they show no SAL line into Pinehurst (though the map shows it)--but the NS carried the cars between the SAL and Pinehurst; SAL crews may have moved the trains on the NS, since 9.2 miles is not a long day's work. There was also a setout sleeper NY-Raleigh on the train, which was taken off at the Johnson St. (SAL) station, and moved into the Union station. The SAL trains that then stopped in Raleigh went into and out of the Union station (with a backup move).

Johnny

[wanswheel]

There was a New York to Pinehurst train called the Carolina Golfer during the 1929-30 winter season. 

[Deggesty]

ZephyrOverland

Southern Pines was on the Seabord main line, a station I used on occasion when stationed at Fort Bragg, but I never heard of a branch line to nearby Pinehurst.  

Looking at two Guides I have near my computer, one issued in 1944, and the other in 1950. I see the earlier SAL map showing a branch to Pinehurst; it was gone by 1950.

Johnny

[ZephyrOverland]

daveklepper

Southern Pines was on the Seabord main line, a station I used on occasion when stationed at Fort Bragg, but I never heard of a branch line to nearby Pinehurst.   (The road linking the two towns was the very first divided four lane highway in the USA with a neutral ground and grass between opposing directions.)  If the train ran on the RF&P and Seabord, then I would suspect it was a Washington - Wilmington, NC train.  If there was a branch line at one time to Pinehurst. then a short consist but possibly all-first-class parlor Waqshington - Pinehurst doodle-bug led train would have had a reason for existance.   Good name would have been the Tar Heel   or jsut the Pinehurst Limited. 

 

Is this a submitted question or are you just thinking out loud?

[daveklepper]

Southern Pines was on the Seabord main line, a station I used on occasion when stationed at Fort Bragg, but I never heard of a branch line to nearby Pinehurst.   (The road linking the two towns was the very first divided four lane highway in the USA with a neutral ground and grass between opposing directions.)  If the train ran on the RF&P and Seabord, then I would suspect it was a Washington - Wilmington, NC train.  If there was a branch line at one time to Pinehurst. then a short consist but possibly all-first-class parlor Waqshington - Pinehurst doodle-bug led train would have had a reason for existance.   Good name would have been the Tar Heel   or jsut the Pinehurst Limited. 

[KCSfan]

Must be Wilmington, but darned if I can find the name of the train.

Edit: Southern Pines (Pinehurst) is also a possibility. But I can't find the name of a train that terminated there either.

Mark

[ZephyrOverland]

Deggesty

Was the southern terminus a resort town in North Carolina?

Johnny

 

(14) yes

[Deggesty]

Was the southern terminus a resort town in North Carolina?

Johnny

[ZephyrOverland]

wanswheel

Does a railroad yet to be named have a component generically similar to a component of RF&P, such as a city or body of water?

(13) no - the railroads associated with this train have been mentioned

[ZephyrOverland]

KCSfan

I can't think of a named SAL train in the post WW2 period that didn't run either to Florida or through Atlanta. Therefor I have to ask if it was a train that was discontinued prior to WW2?

Mark

 

(12) yes

[wanswheel]

Does a railroad yet to be named have a component generically similar to a component of RF&P, such as a city or body of water?

[KCSfan]

I can't think of a named SAL train in the post WW2 period that didn't run either to Florida or through Atlanta. Therefor I have to ask if it was a train that was discontinued prior to WW2?

Mark