| Office of the North Carolina Rail Road Co. |
| Company Shops, 8th Jan. 1864 |
|
|
|
Maj. F. W. Sims
|
| Richmond Va. |
| |
| Dear Sir, |
| I recd your telegram of yesterday and
now write you as I promised. |
| We now take from the Charlotte & S.
C. R. R. all they bring to us, besides a great deal from other
points -- almost the whole of our equipment (Freight) is absorbed by
Gov't Transportation. Our great need is Freight Cars, and we keep
all we have as fully occupied as possible, in fact we run some of
them when they ought to be in the shops undergoing repair. But our
great anxiety is to do all the Gov't requests. We only run but one
mail train a day; but we have two Passenger trains and we find from
past experience that we cannot accommodate our travel with one
train. Our road being so long, we have more way travels than any
other road that I know of. Last winter for two months, we took off
one train and the consequence was that the other was ??? ??? we
could not do the work, and the curses of the public against us were
loud & frequent. |
| We know by past experience that if we
discontinue one passenger train that we carry no more freight than
when we run two. It takes eight engines to run one train and but
twelve to run both. With each of these trains we carry three freight
cars each way making thirty six freight cars each way every week.
Now the four engines put to that business will not carry more. We
have 20 f?? freight cars that frequently one engine is delayed a day
to have the train unloaded & loaded again |
| {end of the archived document} |
| {the technical nature of this
letter makes it appear to have been written by the Superintendent,
Thomas J. Sumner} |