| Office North Carolina Rail Road Co. |
| Company Shops, 8 March {month
not certain} 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 repairs. But our
great anxiety is to do all ???? {an entire line is off the bottom of
the page} |
| We find from past experience that we
cannot accommodate our travel with one train -- our Road being so
long, we have more Way travel 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 so crowded 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 very much now
the four engines, put to that business, will not carry more. We have
so few freight cars that frequently an engine is delayed a day to
have the train unloaded & loaded again. |
| {End of filmed letter, but the
paper and handwriting make it clear that it was written by Thomas
Webb, President} |