Agents?

[NW Mailing List]

Harry,

I seem to remember that these attendants on the Powhatan Arrow were called Passenger Service Representatives instead of Traveling Passenger Agents.  Maybe some third party will referee.

My understanding of the role of a Traveling Passenger Agent is illustrated by the following item from the March 12, 1904, Bluefield Daily Telegraph that I posted here back in March of this year:

PERSONALS AND BRIEFS
------
    R. Campbell Kennedy, traveling passenger agent for the Big Four Railway; W. H. Allen of the Wisconsin Central, and J.C. Pond of the Pennsylvania lines, are in the city.

I am confident that traveling passenger agents called on ticket agents in stations all over the country to try to influence them to route passengers over the traveling agent's home railroad.  Remember, in those days there were many competing railroad lines on which similar schedules were maintained, meaning that the ticket agent  could route passengers over a favored foreign railroad if the passenger did not specify otherwise.

The traveling agent probably distributed cigars, advertising trinkets and probably more than a few pints of Kentucky's finest distilled sprits.  As a example of an advertising handout, I have a Great Northern cigarette lighter that was given to me many years ago by an aunt who was a passenger ticket agent for the PRR at the downtown Washington, DC, ticket office at 14th and G streets.  I have no doubt that she was given this by a GN traveling passenger agent.

Gordon Hamilton
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: NW Mailing List 
  To: nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org 
  Sent: Monday, July 07, 2008 6:33 AM
  Subject: Re: Agents?


  The Powhatan Arrow carried uniformed Traveling
  Passenger Agents.  They were a little better at
  p.r. than some conductors.  They assisted passengers
  in making connections and made sure they sat
  in the correct  reserved seat.

  Traveling Freight Agents worked for the Trans-
  portation Department.  ONE of their assignments was
  to police use of N&W hoppers by foreign railroads.
  When hoppers became empty, there's a
  requirement that they're returned to the owning
  road.  These Traveling Freight Agents would 
  review the car records on file at off-line stations
  to make sure railroads weren't appropriating N&W
  hoppers for their own loading.
                                         Harry Bundy 





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