[PRCo] Re: PSSST - WANNA BUY LOUSY PICTURES?

[Fred Schneider]

A whole lot faster to drive from New York to Roanoke via I-78 and I-81.  No small
wonder that the trains and over-the-road buses have all but vanished.   In my youth,
the Pennsy / Norfolk and Western still had two daily trains a day ... the Harrisburg
- Roanoke day train, and the night train with carried a New York and Roanoke
sleeper.  Of course this was a drastic drop from the peak.  I never saw them on this
end, but I did see the sleeper train behind a class J 4-8-4 after dinner one evening
at a small town north of Roanoke where it passed a southbound freight being mauled by
a Y6b Mallet.  I think I also photographed a Mack bus in Roanoke the day before and
it even had passengers on it.  .  Wouldn't we all like to go back to those pre
McDonald's days?  Back when waitresses served our meals and we slept in motels built
to look like Indian teepees.  Memories loose all the bad stuff, like how many hours
you spent creeping along on two lane roads behind trucks.

It's fun looking at old Official Guides.  January 1930 (before the railroads had time
to react to the stock market crash but long after the affect of automobiles began)
shows 11 workday or daily trains on the Cumberland Valley ... three Harrisburg and
Carlisle locals (20 miles), two trains that ran all the way through over the N&W to
Roanoke, 2 trains from Harrisburg to Hagerstown and Winchester (was also the day
Roanoke train) and three more trains only from Harrisburg to Hagerstown with no
connections to the youth.   The Harrisburg - Roanoke night train carried a
Philadelphia and Roanoke sleeper and a New York - Harrisburg - Roanoke - Williamson
WV sleeper.  The second night train carried a Philadelphia and Hagerstown sleeper.
As the Depression depended, the trains were pruned, the double-track on the
Cumberland Valley because redundant and was used for storage of freight cars that
were also out of work.

(I don't think Derrick will object to this post since he's a Pennsy aficionado.

Harold Geissenheimer wrote:

> Greetings
>
> I had the pleasure to ride with Bill after the war as he did his motorman job.  I
> enjoyed
> seeing him many times on PRC trips.  I have really only known four West
> Virginians
> well.  Bill first, then Mel Courtney from Tunnelton was a Sgt in the Army(I
> visited
> with him and his family several times), then Stuart Rich, a College Professor at
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