Train Holdup 1907

 

George Speake, Who Obstructed the Track and Fired Upon a Freight Engine Near Providence Forge, is in Jail Here. 

 -George Speake, of Baltimore, was arrested yesterday morning at 9 o’clock at Providence Forge and brought to RICHMOND and lodged In the county jail.

 Speake attempted to hold up a Chesapeake and Ohio east-bound freight train yesterday morning as the train was nearing Providence Forge. The engineer noticed some obstructions on the track and later saw, after whistling for the brakes, that a man was standing in the middle of the track. As the engine approached the man raised his hand and began firing. Conductor Cobb and Brakeman Brenan caught the man and transferred him to a passenger train bound for RICHMOND.

-News Leader, May 6, 1907

The last "major" American train robbery was attempted on November 25, 1937, outside El Paso Texas against a passenger train of the Southern Pacific Railroad. The two would be robbers were overcome by passengers and badly beaten for their effort.

Flooding- 1948

             

                        Washed-Out Roads Keep Crews Busy 

RICHMOND, VA., May 27—(AP) —Crews of workmen today were busy restoring washed out rail and highway lanes over which traffic between here and Newport News had been halted.

 Heavy rainstorms in New Kent and Charles City Counties yesterday flooded to as much as eight feet sections of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway and U.S. Highway 60 in the Windsor Shades area.

 Whether rail and highway traffic could be resumed over these two arterial lines sometime today had not been determined early this morning by C.& O. and State Highway Department Officials. A lot depended upon whether additional rainfall fell.

 A C.& O. spokesman said the railroad “hopes" to have one track open for resumption of train movements by this afternoon. As much as 250 feet of the railroad's main line fill had been undermined by the torrents.

 Trains had not moved between here and Newport News since train No. 45, The Sportsman, was halted about 2 p.m. yesterday at Providence Forge and has turned back in Richmond. 

 The Highway Department was routing traffic between here and Williamsburg over route 33. This road was covered with four to six inches of water for a while near New Kent Courthouse; but was clear by nightfall last night. 

 Where Route 60 paralleled the railroad east of Providence Forge, long stretches of highway were covered with water to depths up to eight feet late yesterday. 

-Suffolk News-Herald,  27 May 1948

Civil War Operations on the York River Railroad

 A note on the scale of the operations on the York River Railroad during the Peninsula Campaign.

                                                        “War Department

Washington City, D. C., May 17, 1862

Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan,

Headquarters, Army of the Potomac

There have been forwarded from Baltimore to West Point five locomotives, eighty cars, 3 miles in length of railroad iron, 30,000 feet, board measure, of timber, one dozen frogs, one dozen switch irons, 1,200 chairs, with full supply of rail spikes, the last of which, it is expected, will reach the Peninsula on Monday.

P.H. Watson

Assistant Secretary of War

 

-Official Record, Series 1, Volume 11, (Part 3), p. 178

“March 14, 1862, General McClellan instructed me to have five locomotives and eighty cars loaded upon vessels in the harbor of Baltimore and held subject to his orders with a view to using them in his contemplated Peninsula campaign. They were purchased from Northern railroad companies, loaded as directed, and remained on the vessels until early May, when they were sent to White House, Va., and placed upon the Richmond and York River Railroad. Another engine was added in June to this number, and all employed in transporting supplies between White House and the front, which, toward the close of June, was twenty miles from White House and four miles from Richmond. Upon the withdrawal of the Army of the Potomac to Harrison's Landing, June 28, all the rolling stock was destroyed or damaged as far as practicable to prevent it from falling into the hands of the enemy.”

       D. C. McCallum, Military Director & Superintendent of Railroads

 

-Official Record, Series 3, Volume 5, pp. 974-975.

citations found in  Rodney Lackey's article, "Civil War Logistics and Organization"