Bristol, VA question for Ed King

Kevin - This photo was made from the east end of the Mary Street Bridge and shows two sets of power being handled by the outside hostler from the roundhouse to the passenger station for outbound passenger trains.  The diesel is a two-unit set of Fs to go on the westbound Pelican, #41, due Bristol around 9 AM.  The J will go on the eastbound Tennessean, #46, around 10:30 AM.

Both the N&W and Southern passenger engine crews reported for duty at the passenger station.  The Southern caboose in the photo is on the rear of Southern inbound time freight 74 (or 72 - it was so long ago, but one or the other) yarded in the east yard, and the N&W cabooses to the right are in the caboose track in the east yard.

Don't put any stock in the story that they sent a J to Bluff City to rescue a Southern passenger train.  If a Southern train had a problem west of State Street or west of where a Bristol yard engine could get to it, it was on its own.  Similarly, if an N&W train had trouble east of town, it was on its own.  Makes a fun tale, but just didn't happen.

Photo looks like it was made through one of the holes in the concrete railing of the Mary Street Bridge.  Fun photo, indeed!

Hope this helps.  Any more photos like this surface, please let me know!

EdKing

Thanks Ed.  I appreciate that.  There were some pics recently of the Y6 boiler explosion/crown sheet failure (??) at Wytheville recently, but I'm sure those aren't all that rare.

So would they move both sets of power down from the roundhouse together as a general rule?

Kevin

Kevin -

The Wytheville shots have been around.  The shots in Roanoke Shop were in the book CLASSIC POWER 3A - THE USRA 2-8-8-2 SERIES.  The other shots were from the Wytheville paper and have been around.

It was a unique boiler explosion in that the boiler did not leave the frame because the boiler pressure was only 130 pounds, but the cast high-pressure bed frame was broken clean behind the cylinders.  It was very difficult to move the engine because of the broken frame so it took a while to get it back to Roanoke.

In Bristol, the roundhouse was a mile and a quarter east of the passenger station.  Passenger power from both roads had to be moved back and forth by the outside hostler and his helper.  There were several instances during the day when two "sets" of power were moved at once; the most prominent  - the most visible during the day - was the movement in your photograph - #41's Southern diesels and #46's J.  In late afternoon, #45's J was moved to the roundhouse coupled up to the Abingdon Branch train's class M 4-8-0. 

The fanciful scenario that the J "rescued" a Southern train in Southern territory was concocted by an outlander who saw a photograph like yours, or maybe the same one,  and let his imagination run wild.  The Mary Street bridge was a quarter mile EAST of the passenger station.  The engines in the photo were moving WEST, toward the station, not east.

A little thought will thoroughly debunk the "rescue" story.  1) Could the Southern of the day handle the weight of the J (it could, now, of course)?  At 494,000 pounds the J weighed 20 tons more than the heaviest steam locomotive the Southern ever had including its 2-8-8-2s and the J's tender, loaded, weighed as much as a Southern Ss-class 5000-series 2-10-2.  2) Who would authorize such a move?  There was no one in Bristol who could do that - it would have to have come from Roanoke.  3) Where would a crew come from?  Bristol was not a crew base for either Southern's  Knoxville Division or N&W road crews, so there were no road people available and yard crews could not go outside yard limits, a long way from Bluff City.

So until someone shows me a non-photoshopped picture of a J coming east past Vance's Tank, say, with #46 I'm going to stay with it.

Thanks for your interest.

EdKing