Author Topic: Southern Railway Varnish, The New Royal Palm, and SARM  (Read 5889 times)

Offline etalcos

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Southern Railway Varnish, The New Royal Palm, and SARM
« on: August 02, 2011, 09:42:04 PM »
Since Ron has taken us on a very enjoyable and educational trip down memory lane, I thought I'd pass along a little good news from Southern Appalachia Railway Museum.  Last evening we received the paperwork donating Southern Railway Budd coach 829 to SARM! We have been working on this for nearly a year now and are delighted and humbled to get the car.  The coach is a gift from the Bluewater Michigan Chapter NRHS and will be moving from Saginaw to Oak Ridge shortly. The car is in operating condition and should help provide extra seating for fall.

829 was part of the Southern passenger car order from 1949 and no doubt operated numerous times on the CNO&TP.  With this acquisition SARM will have the largest group of Southern Budd coaches held in preservation: 664 Fort Oglethorpe, 665 Fort McPhereson, 819 and 829.  The collection also includes Southern 2206 Roanoke Valley which is the only intact Southern 14-4 sleeper left in existence.

Charlie

Here are a few pictures of the 829:



Offline etalcos

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Re: Southern Railway Varnish, The New Royal Palm, and SARM
« Reply #1 on: August 02, 2011, 09:45:20 PM »
Here is a shot of the old girl most likely on the Crescent in the 1970s:

Offline E.M. Bell

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Re: Southern Railway Varnish, The New Royal Palm, and SARM
« Reply #2 on: August 02, 2011, 10:19:03 PM »
Very Impressive. SARM is amassing a rather impressive collection of Southern Equipment. That car looks to be in great shape! I have never been much of a passenger car guy, but always thought  the Southern silver sides where pleasing to the eye. I really hated to see those 800's get painted Tuscan by the NS when they rebuilt the fleet for excursions many moons ago (although the uniform trainset DID look much better)

Throw in an appropriate engine or Two, and we could re-create Ron's shot of the Palm one day!

E.M. Bell, KD4JSL
Salvisa, KY

      

Offline Ponce de Leon

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Re: Southern Railway Varnish, The New Royal Palm, and SARM
« Reply #3 on: August 02, 2011, 10:28:52 PM »
Outstanding acquistion! Yes, this car ran regularly on the Royal Palm and the New Royal Palm (which carried a few coaches, although it was mostly sleepers).

Emmitt---if we could stand on the bridge at Parkers Lake circa 1964 and watch the southbound Royal Palm roar around the curve with an F3 and E7, with a thin blue haze of diesel exhaust above---and a 15-car train of express reefers, RPOs, baggage cars, streamlined coaches, a diner and a couple of Pullmans----and then turn and watch as it recedes in the distance toward Flat Rock---trailing a swirling cloud of steam vapor from its rear trap---I'd say you'd like passenger equipment just fine. :)

Ron
Ron Flanary

Offline butch

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Re: Southern Railway Varnish, The New Royal Palm, and SARM
« Reply #4 on: August 03, 2011, 08:48:04 AM »
Ron, I'm guessing you chose 1964 to stand on the bridge because if you had been there prior to the realignment that by-passed CNO&TP T11, there wasn't a bridge there.   For an overpass in that area, you would have had to go down to Wiborg or below Flat Rock.  I bet you could still find some of the remains of the original US27 on the ridge over T11.
Butch Adkins
butch@email.uky.edu

Railroad Tunnel hunting in Kentucky

Offline Ponce de Leon

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Re: Southern Railway Varnish, The New Royal Palm, and SARM
« Reply #5 on: August 03, 2011, 09:06:54 AM »
Correct! By 1964 the raw earth from the construction would have grown over just a bit, so it would have made a decent photo spot.

When I worked on the CNO&TP in 1972, you could still see the north portal of tunnel number 12 just south of the control point at Cumberland Falls. That little spur that runs off there is actually the remains of the old main line. When US 27 was widened and improved, apparently the tunnel was obliterated in the process.

So many of the familiar photographic vistas we have all visited on the Rat Hole didn't exist before 1963. It was largely a very narrow, twisting line with limited access, shoehorned into cuts here and there---and of course with many tunnels. Only in reviewing the past can one fully appreciate the vision of D.W. Brosnan and others with the Southern who pulled off the rebuilding of the Second District in 1962-63. Nearly a half century later, it's still amazing to me.

RF
Ron Flanary

Offline butch

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Re: Southern Railway Varnish, The New Royal Palm, and SARM
« Reply #6 on: August 03, 2011, 11:06:16 AM »
That would have been the T11 portal  :) .  Emmitt has a story about US 27 expansion taking out the north end of it.  And I think the old spur that is left was a house track maybe...it is jointed rail with 1925 dates on it and you can still see a few ties from a track that runs just west of it.  But having hiked all the original CNO&TP tunnels, I agree with your assessment of the original track.
Butch Adkins
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Railroad Tunnel hunting in Kentucky

Offline Ponce de Leon

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Re: Southern Railway Varnish, The New Royal Palm, and SARM
« Reply #7 on: August 03, 2011, 12:10:01 PM »
My mistake....Tunnel 11.

Whether or not the rail you photographed was the main, or a house track, depends on the weight. If it's 132 pound/yd steel, this was probably from the main line (or maybe 131 pound/yd, which was a popular rail section used by the Southern back then). A house track would have been 100 pounds, or maybe even 70.

I think this was the old main line. And---given the year the steel was rolled (1925), that rail carried Ps-4 Pacifics, Ms-4 Mikes, and the original FT demonstrator, EMD 103, in 1939.

Lots of history there...

RF
Ron Flanary

Offline butch

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Re: Southern Railway Varnish, The New Royal Palm, and SARM
« Reply #8 on: August 03, 2011, 12:45:29 PM »
I won't argue about the track-either way it's cool to find rail that old.  And I didn't think about it til now, but jointed rail was probably still pretty common in the early 60s.  I'll check some other pix tonight and see if I have anything that might shed some additional light.  thanks
Butch Adkins
butch@email.uky.edu

Railroad Tunnel hunting in Kentucky

 

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