How about a little Southern Railway nostalgia. Enoy Tom From April 1955 Southern Railway Ties magazine This remarkably clear photograph of a Southern engine was taken at the railway's South Richmond (Va.) yard sometime during 1894 or 1895. The fashionably dressed engineer was William C. Fear. Notice the solid wheel on the front pilot. From my on-line collection of Southern Railway Ties Southern Railfan Web site Again from April 1955 Ties Birmingham division derrick and crew in 1910. Engineer A. C. Carroll is on the derrick. The others, left to right, are: T. L. Mauldin, foreman; Ed Askew, fireman; Ben Robinson, cook; and ground men Gus Johnson, Ed Robinson, Ed Johnson, and Arthur Robinson. The photograph was loaned to TIES by W. T. Harper, who retired recently as yardmaster for the Southern at Birmingham, Ala. From March 1955 A Southern yard engine crew posed for this one at Newport, Tenn., in about 1924 or 1925. W. K. Remine, chief clerk to agent at John Sevier, who loaned the picture, identifies the crewmen as (left to right): Dick Yearwood, conductor, Earstus B. Love, engineer, O. S. Brooks, fireman, Worth Pendleton and Darrius Netherton, trainmen. The little girls are not identified. From May 1955 Ties This picture shows the aftermath of an accident that occurred on February 28, 1902, at Couch Creek, Ga., about 39 miles south of Atlanta on what is now the Atlanta division. Engineer Allen Mat thews took engine 1002 and a three-car passenger train south that evening. Due to a washout farther down the line, he had orders to tie up at Williamson, five miles beyond Couch Creek. Shortly before his train reached the trestle, a mill dam upstream gave way and flood waters washed out part of the trestle. The train went off the middle of the trestle and plunged into the water. It took three weeks to get No.1002 up out of the mud and water. In a story told to H. G. Monroe and published in Railroad Stories in November 1935, W. C. "Cap" White, the Southern Railway man who directed the work, called it the "biggest little job I ever had." They had to put cofferdams around the sunken engine, change the course of the creek when the water got low enough, and put five boilers and pumps in the swamp to get the water out. This picture was apparently taken after the engine was chained up out of the mud onto a temporary track to get it back to the main line. From Feb. 1956 Graceful curves and fancy trimming predominated in the architectural design of passenger stations by the Southern-predecessor South Carolina Railway. A typical example is this station and freight shed built by the SCR at Summerville, S. C., sometime in the 1880's and later moved on flat cars to Ladson, S. C., where the picture was made. The buildings were dismantled in 1935. This photo is from my collection - more on line at SRR Photo Archives South Carolina Railroad 44 (second one) did not come to Southern Builder: Baldwin Build Date: December 1874 Last one for now, from December 1957 Ties A high-stepping steamer of the sixties was this Baldwin 4-6-0 built for the South Carolina Railroad in 1859. Shelby F. Lowe, yard clerk at Atlanta who sent in this print, identified this as the "W. C. Gatewood." Apparently luckier that some of its contemporaries at eluding the Federal troops (several of the road's locomotives just "disappeared" during the war period) this locomotive served until it was scrapped in 1876. Visit my Southern Railway site at Southern Railfan.NET
The Southern Railway is one I have seen little of, and few people seem to model it. I have definitely never seen such early photos! Great stuff Funny how everyone wanted to be photographed in those days
Nice stuff. Thanks for sharing! Fun to see the employees, standing around in proud poses. Not the same today in "modern" railroading. Boxcab E50
Great photos! Do you have any from upstate S.C. ? Or any of the small short lines that Southern swallowed up, like the Buffalo, Union, and Carolina (aka the B.U.C.)?
