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Southern Railway Panorama By Frederick Kramer From the first diesel to last stea
Southern Railway Panorama By Frederick Kramer From the first diesel to the last steam locomotive
Soft Cover stapled
Copyright 1978 Quadrant Press
56 pages
CONTENTS
Introduction 2
Brief Historical Review 4
Before World War II 16
Peach Trains 24
Articulateds 27
The War Years 30
Postwar Modernization 33
Bridges 39
Waning Days of Steam 43
The Last Steam Run 48
Connecting Short Lines 50
Diesels on the Main Line 52
Preservation 55
THE SOUTHERN RAILWAY'S main line heads southwest from the capitol building in Washington, not stopping until it has reached New Orlean's levees at the mouth of the Mississippi. In doing so, its rails reach diagonally across a quarter of the nation, forming the Southland's strong steel backbone.
Spreading out in all directions from the main line, come the other principal routes and branches that make up the Southern Railway system. All the South is embraced: its commercial and manufacturing centers, its wealth of natural resources, its agricultural bounty.
It's hard to name an important city in the South that isn't reached by the Southern's tracks. Atlantic tidewater is reached at Norfolk, Charleston, Savannah, Brunswick, and Jacksonville; the Mississippi River is met at New Orleans, Memphis, and St. Louis. There's a northern gateway at Cincinnati, a gulf port at Mobile, and important terminals in between at Atlanta, Birmingham, and Chattanooga.
The railroad's slogan tells the story in a phrase: "The Southern Serves the South." It's the perfect slogan. And like many things of special value, these words and the railroad's famous emblem came about more by happenstance than intent.
Appropriately, the idea for the emblem's design came to Mr. L. E. Jeffries while he was riding on a Southern train. It was 1915 and Mr. Jeffries was the railroad's general counsel and a vice-president. In an idle moment he had been doodling, using some coins from his pocket. He traced a half-dollar and, seeing the circle, centered a 25-cent piece to trace a concentric circle. Shortly, there was a moment of inspiration and the urge to design an emblem gave direction to his aimless thoughts.
The railway's initials - SR - fit nicely within the smaller circle, but something was needed in the band between the circles. Perhaps it should be a motto, and this proved to be the hard part of the design. There were many false starts but at length it came to his mind. Masterful, alliterative, graphic: "The Southern Serves the South."
His creation was irresistible. The company had been using a trademark that consisted of the letters SR with an arrow running through them, a twenty-year-old design based upon the logo of a predecessor company. Jeffries' emblem immediately supplanted the existing symbol, and it was introduced to the public in the September timetables of 1915. Since then, the future-oriented "Look Ahead, Look South" has post-scripted the Southern's promise of service.
The ability to serve stems from the efforts of many capable people and skillful leadership. Recently, Dun's Review, one of the investment community's prestigious journals, rated the Southern Railway as one of the five best-run companies in America - in any line of business. Accordingly, the company's history and mention of its leaders are included in these pages.
Primarily, however, this is a pictorial review focusing on the years between the arrival of the Southern's first diesel unit and the retirement of its last steam locomotive. Steam and diesel power shared the Southern's runs through the war years, the prosperity of the late 1940s, and on into the early 1950s, a co-existence that lasted but a dozen years.
The photographs depict those times. Some of the pictures come from the archives of the Southern Railway; others from railfans who felt the import of the times most keenly and preserved the atmosphere of the era. Collectively, these photographic records combine to produce a Southern Railway Panorama.
All pictures are of the actual item. There may be reflection from the lights in some photos. We try to take photos of any damage. If this is a railroad item, this material is obsolete and no longer in use by the railroad. Please email with questions. Publishers of Train Shed Cyclopedias and Stephans Railroad Directories. Large inventory of railroad books and magazines. Thank you for buying from us.
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