I know that N&W used to use the Class J locomotives to pull Southern Railway’s “The Tennessian” to I believe Bristol, TN. That was because the Southern used diesel locomotives and the N&W did not have diesel facilities for these trains. When did N&W stop using Class J’s for “The Tennessian”?[banghead]
I haven’t located a specific date yet, but the book Norfolk & Western Passenger Service 1946-1971 by William E. Warden (TLC Publishing, 1990) has a photo of J 603 on the eastbound Tennessean on Blue Ridge grade in December of 1957 (page 30) and then a photo of Southern E-units pulling the train in September, 1958 with the caption “after the 4-8-4s were taken off the varnish…”.
Bill
Bill,
Thank you for the information. I wonder if Andy Speradeo has an information on this suggest as he is the “go to guy” with respect to passenger trains?
Help, Andy, please>[bow]
In his headlong rush to dieselize the N&W, Stuart A. Saunders leased passenger diesels from connections to replace perfectly good Js, which were then downgraded to local freight power until they ran out of flue time. One side effect was installation of doghouses on the tender decks of locomotives capable of running at 90 mph all day. The other side effect was a double come-down for N&W passenger train appearance - first being pulled by locomotives in other railroads’ livery, then being pulled by monochrome hood units that looked like something assembled by a kid with a box of black Legos. They didn’t even have that maroon stripe…
Note, though, that the, `furrin,’ locos were pulling scheduled N&W trains with N&W crews. They weren’t rerouted Southern trains.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Stuart A. Saunders was disliked by many including the railfan community but,he did what he had to do in order for the N&W to become profitable and survive the coming years.
The February 1963 issue of Trains Magazine contained a excellent article titled “Stuart Saunders and his money making machines”…A good read that covered N&Ws transition from steam to diesel…
Thanks for the confidence, Craig.
And as a matter of fact, I answered this question a while back, at least in regard to the Tennesean. Here’s what I wrote:
"The [Southern Rwy’s.] Tennesean was launched in 1941 with E6 diesels west of Bristol, Tenn., and the streamlined Ps-4 no. 1380 east of Lynchburg/Monroe, Va. As the Southern added E7 and E8 locomotives, they were also assigned to this train. The 1380’s group of Pacifics were retired between 1948 and 1953, but diesels had replaced the streamlined 4-6-2 on the east end of theTennesean’s route before 1950.
“The N&W usually assigned its streamlined class J 4-8-4s to the Southern’s streamliner. However, once the N&W began to dieselize its pasenger service in 1957, Southern passenger diesels started running through over the N&W on the Tennesean and so ran all the way between Washington and Memphis.”
Other Southern passenger trains routed via the N&W also began running through with their own diesels at about the same time.
Happy New Year,
Andy