A few clarifications for Sandy Smart: * OSM does indeed stand for “Oil Spray Machine” (or “spraying”). As Ike says below, the alpha-numeric numbers were converted to 99XXXX-series MofW numbers in 1969

Thanks for the correction, Tim. That was the one caption I farmed out, but I probably would have made the same mistake if I had written it. I’ll mention the error in TIES. Best wishes, —Bill

Green lettering. Unfortunately, too few well-lit photos of the monogram in the green era exist, and too many of those have been duplicated so many times that the color has shifted. When duplicated, th

Dave: The sheet metal monogram used on F-units in, say, the 1950s, was green and (imitation) gold. I owned one, and donated it to TVRM. —Bill

Rick: Those who live in glass houses . . .😜 —Bill Another iPhone-generated message

Excellent explanation. I expect those wood boxcars were nearly all ghosts. I remember when I was in the training program in Greensboro the mechanical Dept used a wood boxcar - sans trucks, in the weed

I’ll (try to remember to) look it up when I get home next week.

IIRC, Prince said the Ms Mikados, which were legit on the Evansville and French Lick branches, ferried to the rest of the system via West Baden-Monon-Louisville. —Bill Schafer

Many thanks to those on the list who came through with excellent photos and other information concerning Southern Railway’s aggregate hoppers, the first of which was constructed by the Greenville Stee

Thanks, Jack and Ike. I have the Diesels of the Southern Railway book here at home, but I don’t have it memorized yet. :-)

I'm not a locomotive expert by any means, and one of our colleagues from White River Productions, Dale Sanders, has posed a question I hope someone in the group can answer. Dale says: I'm in the proce

No, but it seems to me to have been a common convention at the turn of the last century. And the Wall Street Journal still places a period at the end of its title, even on the app on my cell phone, an

Thanks a lot, Warren

All: For an article in an upcoming TIES, I’d like to find some publishable images of Southern’s aggregate hoppers (pre-NS merger), most of which were built by Greenville Steel Car Co. in the early-197

IIRC, the coaches (I think there were two) assigned to trains 7-8 during the Amtrak limbo were modernized heavyweight single vestibule cars, each equipped with the “food service” required on these tra

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