Very neat view of Military Railroad

[Emmanuel Dabney]

This image is at the National Archives. While you can't have a hyper zoom like the Library of Congress allows, this image shows that even temporary structures could be beautiful:

Search for Engine No. 133, U.S. Military R.R., City Point, Va

[DaveGink]

Hmmm. Can't find it.

[spooky1864]

Nice photo! A good view of a period military railyard--there's a lot of action going on here. I found it interesting that the 4-4-0 locomotive in the foreground is burning wood rather than coal. I imagine the demand for coal at times outstripped the supply, even in the North.
______________
Stephen Walker

[Emmanuel Dabney]

Sorry hadn't been following and thought I had included the link to the search page for the National Archives (which is not very user friendly).

Search page: http://arcweb.archives.gov/arc/basic_search.jsp

[JWNathan]

Very nice image indeed, love the fort. The Loco in the pic is made for burning wood, look at the stack, it's a cone shaped spark arrester stack, coalies for the most part have a straight stack.
-Jesse

[CeeBeeRebel]

Mr. Dabney,

The link you posted didn't work as well do in part to the user unfriendliness. It said it was timed out to allow other users the chance to view items. I went back and found it and that is a neat image. Would there have been a flag attached to the center pole on the fort or was the pole just looks?

[Becky Morgan]

As to the demand for coal, it might have been a shipping problem as well. Most early locos were woodburners, as were most early steamboats. In fact, the huge demand for wood stripped the banks of the Mississippi for great distances back from the banks. I'm trying to track down when the majority of steam equipment made the change.

[Emmanuel Dabney]

The USMRR had a variety of coal and wood burning engines. I am not the resident expert here at Petersburg Nat'l Battlefield on the USMRR operations (ask me instead about the Eppes family). If one is very interested in the operations of the USMRR here at Petersburg, feel free to contact James Blankenship (James_Blankenship@nps.gov).

However, I can easily tell you that the Union base of operations at City Point had a coal wharf along the banks of the James River. There were occasional delays but generally City Point operated on a 24 hours a day schedule of activity.