I'm looking for information on what I believe are trains 82 & 83 which were mail/express trains. Trying to model the ACL equivalent of the ATSF Fast Mail Express. Robert Nelson Whiteville, NC

-- Robert Nelson (gfandwrr@yahoo.com), February 04, 2003

Answers

I mention this train briefly in my ACL passenger service book - train 82-83 was the only solid mail/express train left on the ACL after WWII. It ran between Richmond and Savannah, and was discontinued about 1950. As you noted in your other posting, ACL's Pacifics were almost certainly standard power on these trains. The ACL P-5 Pacifics were the road's first USRA Pacifics, a group of 10 originally numbered 493-502 and delivered in 1918. They were shortly renumbered 1500-1509 and the class was changed to P-5-A - with no mechanical changes that I know of. (Example #1504 survives in Jacksonville today.) Additional P-5-As (built 1919-1920) were numbered 1510-1569. Between 1922 and 1926 ACL bought 165 more Pacifics, nos. 1600-1764 and classed P-5-B. The trains' consist would have been a mix of ACL and foreign-road cars, especially from ACL's northern connection at Washington, the Pennsylvania. Most cars would have been passenger- style baggage-express cars, with a heavy dose of box-express and refrigerator-express cars. Mail/express trains had a rider coach or combine on the end for the crew, or occasionally a caboose. Contact me off list for more details.

-- Larry Goolsby (lgoolsby@aphsa.org), February 04, 2003.