At work with Bill Schafer (TVRM / NS)

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At work with Bill Schafer (TVRM / NS)
The Virginian-Pilot
March 31, 2013   

As told to Virginian-Pilot writer Robert McCabe

All my life I've been interested in trains.

My mother said it started at a very early age. I just managed to parlay the interest into a career.

I went to work for Southern Railway in February 1971, very shortly after graduating from Davidson.

Even though I retired two years ago from Norfolk Southern – for 29 years I was in the strategic planning department, where I was a director – I'm still railroading because I'm involved with the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum.

I'm on the board of directors of the organization, which is a not-for-profit, educational group, chartered in Tennessee, that specializes in maintaining and operating historic railroad equipment.

For example, the steam locomotive used on a trip from Norfolk to Petersburg about a week ago was built in 1904. It was rebuilt in Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum's shops in Chattanooga, from about 1998 to 2010 or so.

My job title is director of development for the museum, which I do pro bono. I try my best to find sources of public or philanthropic funding for our historic preservation projects.

Having been a longtime employee of Norfolk Southern and given the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum's close association with Norfolk Southern, I serve as something of a liaison.

The work I do fluctuates. Since I live in Virginia Beach and the museum is in Chattanooga, the kind of work I do is more project-oriented than routine day-to-day stuff.

I'm most focused now on coordinating all of the onboard car hosts for the steam locomotive excursions this spring on Norfolk Southern.

The Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum has its own railroad and has the rights to operate over a couple of other small railroads in the Chattanooga area, so they can offer a variety of steam- and vintage-diesel-powered trips in the Chattanooga area and into North Georgia.

The Norfolk Southern trips are on top of all of that. They're called "21st Century Steam" trips. That is the name given to the cooperative venture between Norfolk Southern and the museum for these main-line steam trips – to commemorate the railroad's 30th anniversary, which occurred in 2012.

Some of the "21st Century" trips are operated for the benefit of Norfolk Southern employees, to serve as a thank you, as well as to give employees an opportunity to ride a train. The recent Petersburg trip was open to the public, because part of our deal with NS was that we could sell tickets on some of the trips to give the public an opportunity to ride an excursion train behind a steam locomotive.

The steam trip to Petersburg was the first of its kind in this region since about 1994.

There is a huge demand for a trip like that. It sold out twice. When the tickets went on sale initially, we had maybe seven or eight cars on the train; we found out that we could add a couple more cars, which made more tickets available. They went pretty quickly, too. Nearly 500 people were on that train.

I don't know if public excursions out of Norfolk are something that could become a regular feature. I don't think, monetarily, there's anything in it for Norfolk Southern. The trips have less to do with dollars and cents and more to do with good neighborliness, employee relations, morale, things of that nature.

Why am I and so many others fascinated by trains? I think it relates to things that move and, in some cases, things that move on a schedule.

It's no secret that there are a lot of aviation buffs out there. There's a whole contingent of maritime buffs out there, too. I don't think they could explain better why they like what they do than I can. But it's part of the same phenomenon, regardless of what the mode of transportation is.

The advice that I would give to someone about to retire is to pursue whatever passion you might have for whatever it might be, whether it's music or travel or if it's working as a museum docent or whatever. Find something you really like to do – and do it.

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Bill is a great guy.  He was tasked with getting the Crescent Corridor up & running as one of his latest projects before he left NS.