All: For an upcoming article in TIES, I am looking for an image, taken from the Church Street overpass in Spartanburg, of the four trains meeting in Spartanburg’s station between 1950 and 1966. This a

Yes, the Royal Arch was a 5 DBR-Obs-Lounge - one of three owned by the SOU built in 1950 for the Crescent and New Royal Palm, the other two being Royal Palm and Royal Court. In 1950, the Royal Arch’s

Enoree River - yes Eno River - no, no, a thousand times no. Another iPhone-generated message

Doug: The Southern does indeed cross the Eno River, at Hillsborough, N.C., just east of Durham. The railroad crossed more rivers than it owned sleeping cars, so not every river received the honor of h

While we’re on the topic, Gordon Andrews recalls that, as a kid in Virginia, he saw the section gangs burning the brush and grass on the right-of-way every year. Here’s my reply: The spectacle you wit

Ike: My sense is that mechanization was a major driver in the reduction, or elimination, of MofW section gangs and the need for section houses. I’d like to see some documentation of this hunch, but So

If the picture dates from 1972, there’s only one train the sleeper could be operating in - trains 1 and 2, the Southern Crescent. I notice the neighboring sleeper and dining car also still have silver

It was originally assigned to the Crescent, and the car ran in that train off and on for years. It also ran on the Southerner in the 1960s, according to some consists I have seen. Does anybody know if

TVRM didn’t paint it in Pullman green; that’s the way it was painted when TVRM received it. I was never comfortable with this paint job because the person who lettered it used zeroes instead of letter

ESHR had 10 of these, as far as I know - 5 at Cape Charles, 5 at Little Creek. When I visited recently to inspect the gondolas, there were a total of six left. I was able to determine each one’s South

Table of contents of 2019-3 TIES, to be mailed this upcoming week: * “In Case of Fire, Break Latticed Crate” - history and replication of Southern’s standard water barrel/fire bucket for putting out f

When I came along, David, the Southern was no longer using A-cars, at least on my part of the railroad. When we changed rail (such as behind the Sperry car) we used a “rail changer” (RCM), which was a

I never saw a list of where the setoffs were, at least on the Southern. When I started in MofW in 1971 (which was before the hi-rail era), I don’t recall ever setting off at a purpose-made location (o

For what it’s worth, I don’t remember seeing any standards for a set-off track other than, maybe, at a track shed. I’m not sure such a specific standard existed, so I too would be interested in seeing

The correct answer is that the Orange-Gordonsville line was leased for 99 years to the C&O by the Richmond & Danville in December 1890. At the same time, C&O obtained trackage rights from Orange to Al

TVRM operates two ex-Central of Georgia Jim Crow coaches in regular service. TVRM 906 is a modernized heavyweight, and the partition is still intact (but the “white” and “colored” designations have be

Re: flexible segregated sections: I hadn't heard that SOU utilized the moveable-curtain solution, but it makes sense. It’s believable. Re: 1401: The late Bernie Gallagher knew exactly what was wrong w

All: I don’t know that anyone has done a definitive analysis of the varying shades of green utilized by the railroads in the first half of the 20th Century. The Pullman Company utilized a shade of gre

Don: I know the answer to the car color. The SRHA knows it’s wrong; the Smithsonian chose not to utilize the correct colors, saying that the authentic colors wouldn’t look “right” in the lighting that

Kevin Van Der Lippe: I don’t know how the underpasses were painted in the 1940s, but when I was living there in the early-1970s, the McGee Street/Davie Street underpass was a dirty gray or silver, wit