Monroe, Virginia, Information Request

NW Mailing List nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org
Sat Nov 3 11:01:27 EDT 2007


Monroe, Virginia was the away-from-home terminal
for crews on Southern's Washington and Danville
divisions. Engine crews handling the passenger
trains from Roanoke also laid over at Monroe. In
1949, for example, Southern daily had 16 first class
and 7 second class trains arriving from Lynchburg
and beyond. Southward from Potomac Yard and
Washington, there were 14 first class and 2 second
class trains arriving. This figure doesn't include
extras and sections. Although the passenger train
conductors, flagmen, etc. ran from Salisbury to
Washington, the freight and engine crews took
rest at Monroe before they returned to their home
terminal.

So what do you do with all that off-duty time at the
outlying point . PLAY POKER ! Monroe became a
"Little Las Vegas". N&W engineer Waldron worked
the Roanoke-Monroe runs for 20-plus years. When
Nos. 17 and 18 disappeared from the schedules (about
1971), he had to requalify Roanoke to Crewe. Seems
railroading had become a second occupation - almost.
He had a reputation of scalping Southern players. One
of Southern's trainmen returned to Salisbury busted.
When his wife asked him for grocery money, he told
her that there wasn't any; that the trains he'd been
assigned to were handling mostly empties and non-
revenue cars.

The N&WHS '08 calendar has a photo made at
Monroe showing No. 45 leaving town.
Harry Bundy





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