(erielack) Speaking of radios & Speed Signs on the..... SOUTHERN

["Curtis Brookshire" <curtis.brookshire_@_verizon.net>]

Thanks Walt for those Amtrak stories.  My run is on those very ex-Southern
tracks you spoke of.  One of the reasons things are like they are goes back
to the corporate culture fostered on SR over the 20th century.  In a word
CHEAP.  They never spent a dime they didn't have to to help out employees.
They did spend a lot on locomotive maintenance on track upkeep which kept
them moving whereas the EL suffered from deferred maintenance which takes
forever to recover from.  So as they sang in "The Music Man", "ya gotta know
the territory!".  I keep eight typewritten pages of notes for the occasion I
have to run south of Lynchburg to Linwood with all my speed restrictions and
geographic features to help in train handling.

Going to Harrisburg or just from Alexandria, VA to Benning Yard in DC is an
adventure as NORAC rules come into play and we play musical dispatchers.
Similar to Walt's trips on the RF&P/SCL.

Oh, how I wish I could go back and run over the DL&W Boonton Line and Cutoff
and witness how well engineered that line was.  Whereas SR was poor and
served an historically economically depressed, the DL&W, when they had the
coal money, knew where to spend it and spent it wisely.

Curtis Brookshire
Manassas, VA


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