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

When I went to work for Southern Railway in Greensboro in 1971, a few vestiges of package car service still existed, although I didn’t appreciate them at the time. Southern apparently turned over its

Ike: The Oxford English Dictionary lists both spellings with equal status. “Dispatch” is by far the more common spelling, uniquely so in the 16th, 17th, and 18th-century examples. “Despatch” seems to

Thanks, Rick, for the memory jog. Here is the excerpt from the October 1915 Southern News Bulletin announcing the official adoption of the SR monogram as the company trademark. No mention is made of t

We received an interesting question on the SRHA Facebook page: does anyone know what happened to SOU 390300, an Ortner rapid-discharge hopper? It was painted in a one-of-a-kind paint scheme for a litt

All: This is a repost since I think the original was deleted. —Bill SRHA's full-color calendar for 2019 is now available. It consists of 14 images, a Southern Railway map, and extended captions for ea

TIES Magazine is the quarterly journal of the Southern Railway Historical Association. It is nominally 32 pages, with prototype articles, mention of notable restorations of Southern Railway equipment