City Point and Army Line Railroad

City Point and Army Line Railroad

locomotives at city
point

Library of Congress - LC-DIG-cwpb-01858 (cropped): Lieut. General Grant, General Robinson, Governor Nye

Locomotives Used on The City Point and Army Line

McCallum's report also lists 55 locomotives on the roster in Virgina at the end of the year. I've been working to determine which ones were in use at City Point. There are several articles that state that there were 25 locomotives and 275 cars on the City Point and Army line. I've been having a hard time imagining where all these locomotives and cars are kept, since at most only three or four locomotives can be seen in any photo of the yard at City Point. I have a hunch that these articles are in error, and are based on a misunderstanding. There is a note in McCallum's report that 24 new locomotives and 275 cars of 5 foot gauge were moved to Manchester, VA at the close of the war. My assumption is that these were intended to be used to supply the US army's final occupation of the South on it's predominately 5 foot gauge railroads. The City Point and Army line was standard gauge. In the end these locomotives and cars were sold and never used by the USMRR.

McCallum's report does list the value of property on each line. Total value of the locomotives in Virginia was 879,000. The value of locomotives on the City Point and Army line was only 125,000 or about 15% of total value. There were 55 locomotives listed, if value of each loco was about the same, then there would be 8 locomotives on this line at this time. This sort of number might be a little low, but I think is closer to the mark, given the amount of yard track and sidings available.

That said, so far I have been able to document 21 locomotives that have been on the line at one time or another through either pictures found at various online archives, websites, interest groups, as well as the wonderful timetable for March 19th, 1865 that Bernard Kempinski has added to his blog. I have put online an animated map of the "City Point and Army Line" showing the hour by hour movement of trains for this timetable. Hopefully Bernard can find time to put up more timetables in order to firm up the locomotive list a bit more.

There is a report on all locomotives of the USMRR in the file section of othe Civil War railroad yahoo group message board by Richard M. Hochadel, that is a great resource for USMRR locomotives. That report is where much of this information comes from.

source	locomotive	type	comments (most from yahoo group report)
photo only - timeframe to be researched
photo	Governor Nye	Norris 4-4-0	1864.04-07 Repaired Alexandria 1865.05.02 Transferred to become USMRR Dept. of North Carolina #16
photo	Col Beckwith	Norris 4-4-0	1864.04-07 Repaired at Alexandria. 1865.10 Sold to the Baltimore & Ohio


evidence for 1864 only
photo - fall 1864	President (2nd)	Eastwick & Harrison 4-4-0	captured by USA on the W&P in 1862 repaired Alexandria 1864-06
Yahoo Group Report	Indiana	Baldwin 0-8-0	1863.06-11 Repaired at Alexandria. 1864 Used on the City Point & Army Line 1864.07 Sold to J. Cooper for $1,675
Yahoo Group Report	Monitor	Souther 4-4-0	1864.04-07 Repaired at Alexandria 1864 Used on the City Point & Army Line 1865 Used on the Winchester & Potomac
Yahoo Group Report	E.M. Stanton	Norris 4-6-0	1862-1863 Used on Orange & Alexandria and construction 1864 Used on City Point & Army Line 1865 Used on O&A and construction

evidence for 1864-1865
Yahoo Group Report/timetable	Pickwick	Norris 4-4-0	1863 Used on the Orange & Alexandria and construction 1864.04-07 Repaired Alexandria 1864 Used on the City Point & Army Line 1865 Used on the O&A and construction.
Yahoo Group Report/photo	Lieut. General Grant	Rogers 4-4-0	1864.05 At White House 1864.06.16 Returned to Alexandria 1864-1865 Used on the Winchester & Potomac and the City Point and Army Line
Yahoo Group Report/photo/timetable	General Dix	Baldwin 4-4-0	1864 Used on the O&A and the Winchester & Potomac 1864-1865 City Point
Yahoo Group Report/timetable	C. Vibbard	Baldwin 4-4-0	1864.03 Plunged into the Potomac River through the draw in the Long Bridge connecting Alexandria and Washington, DC. 1864 Used on the City Point & Army Line 1865 Used on the Norfolk & Petersburg and the Seaboard & Roanoke
Yahoo Group Report/timetable	Geo. A. Parker	Baldwin 4-4-0	1863 Used on the O&A 1864-1865 Used on the City Point & Army Line
Yahoo Group Report	General McCallum	New Jersey 4-4-0	1862-1863 Used on the Orange & Alexandria and construction 1864-1865 Used on the City Point & Army Line.
Yahoo Group Report/timetable	May Queen	Norris 4-4-0	1863 Used on the Orange & Alexandria and RF&P 1864-1865 Used on the City Point & Army Line

evidence for 1865 only
timetable	Tiger	New Jersey 4-4-0	1864.04-07 Repaired at Alexandria 1864-1865 Used on the O&A and construction
Yahoo Group Report	Humming Bird	Baldwin 4-4-0	1864.04-07 Repaired at Alexandria 1863-1864 Used on the O&A and construction 1865 Used on the City Point & Army Line
Yahoo Group Report/photo	General Robinson	Mason 4-4-0	1864.04-06.16 At Aquia Creek 1865 Used on City Point & Army Line
Yahoo Group Report/timetable	Fire Fly	Norris 4-4-0	1863-1864 Used on the O&A 1865 Used on City Point & Army Line
Yahoo Group Report	H.L. Robinson	Mason 4-4-0	1863 Used on the O&A and construction 1864 Used on the Norfolk & Petersburg and the Seaboard & Roanake 1865 Used on the City Point & Army Line
Yahoo Group Report	Hiawatha	Norris 4-4-0	1863-1864 Used on the Orange & Alexandria and RF&P 1865 Used on the City Point & Army Line

Rolling Stock Numbers

In this report, McCallum's doesn't report number of cars, only value, so I can't make the same calculation on cars. However there is another end of war report that gives total number of cars in the Virginia Department in each year. Using a spreadsheet, I can do some rough estimates. First data is from the end of war report.

Cars	purchased	built	captured	total added	lost/destroyed	sold cash	sold exec. order	returned	total reduced	change	year end
1862	503		13	516	458				458	58	58
1863	704	30		734	15	10			25	709	767
1864	68			68	57	126			183	-115	652
1865	415			415	20	958	38	13	1029	-614	38
1866						38			38	-38	0

From these numbers we can guess that during the Petersburg Siege that there approximately 700 or so cars in the USMRR in the Virginia department.

For the year end financial report, we can do some more rough estimates based on the total number of cars. This is assuming that all cars are the same value. I would expect that flat cars might actually be valued a bit lower and passenger cars higher. Actual number of flat cars should be bumped up a little and number of passenger cars lowered.

type	virgina total value	city point value	percent city point	percent type in VA.	approx number in VA.	city point estimate
box car	393750	44100	11	58	407	45
flat car	210800	27200	13	31	217	28
stock car	26100	1800	7	4	27	2
passenger car	47000	11750	25	7	49	12
total	677650	84850	13

This calculation puts about 90 cars at City Point. If 8 trains are run a day with an average of 10 cars per train, this adds up to 80 carloads of goods per day. Note that the USMRR operated with a philosophy of immediately unloading goods once a train arrived at a station. Also note that the City Point and Army line was short enough that each engine and car could potentially be scheduled twice per day. It would require an absolute minimum of 40 cars to operate this sort of schedule, so the estimate provided here, could possibly be close to actual. It sure would be nice to get some lists of actual rolling stock, in order to confirm this.

There is a picture of a set of barges at City Point loaded with 28 flat cars, so that estimate could in fact be right on the money!
barges with flatcars

Crop of image from National Archices (ARC-Identifier 525132)

Interesting Track Details

This is the start of a section detail interesting track details that will need to be modeled. It may eventually migrate to a separate page.

Super-elevation

In the following picture of a part of the City Point Wharf, I noticed that the track on the trestle appears to be super-elevated. Super-elevation is when the outside rail of a curve is higher than the inside rail in order to counteract centripetal force. This allows trains to travel safely at a faster speed around relatively tight bends.

View of Wharf - Library of Congress LC-USZ62-102110

View of Wharf at City Point - Library of Congress LC-USZ62-102110

Here is a detail of the same image
detailed view of trestle

After much discussion on the Civil War Railroads group, with a few of those engaged doubting that this track was super-elevated at all or that it was due to settling of the track. However after further investigation, I came across two more images.

Appomatix River crossing

LC-DIG-ppmsca-08261

These are different views of the bridge over the Appomattox River from near the South Side Railroad Depot in Petersburg. One of these images show Union army wagons, so it was clearly taken after Petersburg fell, perhaps even after the end of the war.

Near Petersburg, after it fell

LC-DIG-ppmsca-08262

Details of these images clearly show the inside track curving off to the bridge is clearly super-elevated.
detail near South Side station at Petersburg

detail near South Side station at Petersburg

These images convinced most of the folks in the debate in the Civil War Railroads group, that super-elevation was in fact, in common use during the Civil War.

During this investigation, I did some math in a spreadsheet in order to have an optimum super-elevation calculator. This spreadsheet can be downloaded from here.
Also, I found a book published in England in 1855 that described some of the engineering behind super-elevation. Here is a table out of the book, "The Practical Railway Engineer".

Superelevation Chart

Note that my spreadsheet calculations are about half of what this book describes. The book actually accounts for the contribution of the shape of the wheels that are intended to keep the train centered on the rails. This shape also tends to help out on curves. My spreadsheet does not account for that.

Library of Congress LC-DIG-cwpb-05905

Little known General Daniel McCallum - Military Director and Superintendent of railroads in the United States during the Civil War.
McCallum was the administrative genius behind the United States Military Railroad. He is credited with the invention of the modern management system used in all large corporations to this day. More well known Haupt makes it clear that McCallum took care of the requisitions, accounts and "red tape", which he did not care to learn. Haupt's autobiography cane be found online http://books.google.com/books?id=C3t2AAAAMAAJ&dq=Herman+Haupt+autobiography&source=gbs_navlinks_s.

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