N & W J Class

Jay,

They were designed as passenger locos.  In the last fwew months of their lives, some ran in freight service.

ChipR

All passenger, until the N&W leased some E8 diesels from the RF&P (1957 or 1958 as I remember), to handle their passenger trains. The Class J locomotives were then bumped to freight duties, for a short time. I remember riding #600 out of Crew, Va. on a pulpwood extra freight, but it kept derailing on the crappy track in the pulpwood loading yards, so I hitched a ride back to the Crew engine terminal in a MOW truck.

The J's were passenger engines that also pulled freight later in their careers.  608 pulled the last regularly scheduled passenger train on 7-16-57....the J's would close their careers on freight.

Please tell me Mr. Hotwater, is Crew, VA anywhere near CREWE, VA?

So I can't spell!!!!!!!

Just shoot me, since I'm past 70 and useless, right?

Heck, no! We like reading your replies.

Look around and you will find some pictures & videos of J's with a doghouse on the tender.

I just want to be sure we was talkin bout the same place! Besides, I catchin' up with ya, so wasn't plannin' on shootin' ya!

Did the j's pull the Powhatan streamliners and heavyweights or just the streamliners?

Everything passenger on the N&W, along with the streamlined K Class 4-8-2 locomotives.

Absolutely and a mix of everything in between.

And as Big Jim stated...here are a few pics...

Doghouse in place... 

600 with a doghouse plus the extra tank during freight duties.

There was a big thread on this a couple of years ago, with lots of great info.  FWIW, I'd bet anything there were J's on passenger trains after July, '57.

Absolutely there were....not sure where I got that.  I don't think the leased units from RF&P and ACL began arriving until 7-58'

Williamson 4-15-58

5-9-58

The J's were still showing up in Trains Magazine's high speed passenger train survey by Don Steffee into 1958 (for the 1957 season), as the last steam powered high speed passenger trains in the USA.

Js were used on the Norfolk-Cincinnati and Monroe-Bristol (Southern Railway) trains.  They only showed up on the Columbus District on freight trains 77 and 78 when they were first inaugurated and before they became heavy enough to require Class A engines.  The only streamlined trains on the main line were the two sides of the Powhatan Arrow, and on the Bristol-Monroe run the two sides of the Tennessean.  All the others were heavyweight consists, heavy with mail and express. 

They seldom if ever appeared on the Shenandoah Division north of Roanoke, and as far as I know their only use on the Winston-Salem District was to handle a special train for Eisenhower when he was running for President in 1952.  Passenger service on these lines and the Columbus District was handled by streamlined 4-8-2s.   

They could be used on the Clinch Valley District as far west as Cedar Bluff, and they could be used on the Dry Fork Branch, which made them OK for detours around wrecks that occurred on the main line between Bluefield, VA (not WVa) and Iaeger. Regular passenger service on these two lines was handled by Pacifics.

EdKing

Ed, there is much I don't know about railroading. I assume most would know the

answer to this question, but I'm going to ask. Which railroad's crews operated the

locomotive on the Southern trains?

Ed Mullan

I always thought that if it operated on the N&W, the train had an N&W crew, especially since there was no "trackage rights" involved.

On the Bristol end, the change of crews went with the change of engines.  In other words, on eastbounds Southern crews brought the trains in and N&W crews took them out, with the reverse happening on westbounds.  Southern locomotives were operated in both directions by N&W outside hostlers between the station just north of State Street and the engine terminal a mile and a half east of the station on the N&W main line.  Engine crews of both roads got off their trains at the station, as did the train crews.  Southern freight engine crews handled their engines from the yard to the N&W roundhouse in both directions.

It was a little more complicated on the northern end.  N&W engiines and crews changed at Monroe, an engine terminal a few miles north of Lynchburg on the Southern main line.  The train crews, however, changed at the Southern station in Lynchburg (Kemper Street).  So, between Monroe and Lynchburg N&W engine crews operated the N&W locomotive on Southern rails with Southern train crews on the train.

Even after Southern diesels began operating through on the N&W, N&W engine crews operated the locomotives between Bristol and Monroe.

EdKing

Great information, thank you.

You might have answered this one, but let me go for a bit of specifics here.  How did it work for authority between Lynchburg and Monroe?  Did the Southern put a Road Foreman or someone in the cab, or were the N&W crews qualified for that section of the run?  Sounds to me like it would get a little messy with the unions and such since you have N&W engine crews operating over the Southern.

Thanks,

Kevin

quote:

 the N&W crews qualified for that section of the run

That would be correct.

Just like the C&O crews had trackage rights from Glasgow, Va. on the N&W to Loch Laird, Va. (1.5 miles south of Buena Vista, Va.) where they then switched over to C&O track from there to Lexington, Va.

N&W crews had been qualified on that stretch of track from the beginning of the operation.  In other words, for many, many years.

EdKing

Excellent thread here.  Make you kinda wonder about how much that "J" class doghouse got used after they were installed.  The J has a rather large cab compared to numerous other steamers.  I'd love to have someone build me a 1/4" scale doghouse for my MTH Premier N&W J, but the one fellow who said he could do it some time back never followed through.  A truly awesome machine right up to their last day of service!

Certainly not what I remember. Because of that huge boiler/firebox, ONLY the Engineer and Fireman had good views forward or rearwards. If I had been a Headend Brakeman, I would have preferred the doghouse up high on the tender. I sure couldn't see much out of the 600 back in 1957!

Great information and a great story....thank you.

Ed King is Steam editor of SRHA's TIES Magazine and is one very knowledgeable fellow with access to much additional research of recent years. TIES has done a tremendous job of publishing the history of Southern steam locomotives in detail, including my favorites, the many classes of Pacifics and Mikados.

Anyone who is a Southern fan, steam or diesel, should be a member of the SRHA [Southern Railway Historical Association]. TIES Magazine comes with the membership. Marvin Black longtime Southern employee is Diesel Editor of TIES.  Marvin worked the Southern's Danville Division and helped me here in Greensboro many times with data on the old A&Y Ry and rail activities at the local textile mills.

Compared to the cab on the A's, the J cab was a stretch limo.

This must be understood about N&W cabs.  N&W's standard turntable was 115 feet.  The A's total wheelbase was enough less than that that the engines could be spotted on the table easily, but pilot and tender drawbars overhung the ends of the tables.  The A's designers desired a nice deep firebox behind the driving wheels, and that they got everything in there within the length limits was a feat of engineering.  If they'd tried to stick a Big-Boy sized cab back on the end of that firebox, they couldn't have gotten it on the turntables.

In all the years that I was acquainted with N&W steam engine crews (including those post-steam old timers I worked with in the 1960s), I never heard anyone complain about any of their cabs; in fact, complaints of any kind were few and far between.

The late Frank Collins, an old Radford Division engineer whom I'd met back in the 1950s, did a lot of running of the 611 and 1218.  The story was, that on a 611 trip, they had a young engineer on the engine fulfilling the union requirements while Frank was doing the running, and he was full of complaints.  "It's too hot."  You can't see out of it."  "It's dirty."  And so on for a few miles, until Frank had heard enough of it.  He told the young guy "the rarilroad built these engines back in the days when they hired MEN to run their trains for them".  The young guy was quiet the rest of the trip.

EdKing 

Seeing as we are discussing the cab, here is a 2 part video I found filmed in the cab of the 611 back in 86' with the late Frank Collins at the throttle and I believe Dwight Browning firing.  If you have never been in the cab or seen it this will give you a good idea as to its size.

And part 2

Dewey, I appreciate the testimonial, but the late Dale Roberts of Spartanburg was the driving force behind the coverage of the various steam classes.  Dale spent a lot of his leisure time looking at photos of Southern Steam locomotives with a magnifying glass, and he could look at a photo of an old class Ks 2-8-0 and tell you which shops it had been assigned to, and in what order it had been there - just by his knowledge of the details and the way the shops worked.

Unfortunately, Dale passed on while we were studying the Ms (4501 class) Mikados, and never completed the fourth of the four episodes planned.  He was a great guy and a pleasure to work with; I told him many times that he didn't need me to do that series.  I tried to do one on the 0-8-0s on my own, and it wasn't as good as it would have been with his input.  We were going to do the articulateds, the 0-6-0s and some of the Ten-Wheelers, but we just didn't get to it.

We did about eight episodes on the K and Ks 2-8-0s (414 engines); three or so on the Mountains (both classes); several on the Ms-1 (USRA Light) Mikados; four on the Ms-4 (USRA Heavy) Mikados; several on the light Pacifics (P Ps, P-1, Ps-2 and P-5 classes) and we covered both classes of 2-10-2s.

The Southern was a strange outfit in steam days; the regions and shops within regions were pretty autnomous, and detailed their locomotives differently.  The famous Ps-4 Pacifics were maintained at Spencer and Atlanta on the system proper; Ferguson Shops on the CNO&TP, and Birmingham's Finley Shop for the AGS.  The Ps-4s from all of these shops were distinct.

Bill Schafer has re-assumed the editorship of TIES,and it is now being produced on the outside; quality has taken an upturn.

EdKing

Excellent cab ride vids, thanks for posting!  I still want the doghouse option... but I really want a pair of detail correct Redbirds, thank you very much.

Your welcome, I prefer them w/o the doghouse as it just ruined the lines on the tender.  The J's were sleek and classy.  But if you want one scratch build one, shouldn't be too hard and there are plenty of pics to work from.

Once when I chased one of the N&W steamers through Ohio in the 1990's, I want to say it was 611 in Watkins Yard, during a yard move, standing trackside, after shooting photos of the locomotive, I looked up as the tool car passed.  In the open baggage door was Frank Collins sitting, with his feet propped up on something.  He was reading a TRAINS magazine.  But the jaw dropper was on the cover of the magazine was a photo of Mr Collins in the cab of one of the steamers!  

Bob

Hey Bob, either you mean the '1980s' or it wasnt' Frank Collins as he passed away in the late '80's.  Ed probably knows the exact year.

Will,  I'm sure you are correct and thanks for the correction.  I'm guessing the date could be pinned down by finding what issue of TRAINS had his photo on the cover.

Cheers,

Bob

Yeah I believe Frank retired at the end of 1988....he passed on as a result of cancer if I am not mistaken.