Southern System Directors See New Chattanooga Yard

Periodic inspection trips over our lines give directors of Southern Railway System lines an opportunity to acquire firsthand knowledge of our facilities and services and the thriving territory we serve.

A visit to Southern's modern Citico Yard at Chattanooga, Tenn., was one of the highlights of the inspection tour of the railway's lines between Richmond, Va., and Cincinnati, Ohio, made last month by members of the boards of various Southern Railway System companies.

This year, following the annual meeting of Southern Railway Company stockholders fat Richmond on May 17, directors of several Southern System companies made an inspection trip over the Southern from Richmond to Chattanooga and from there over the CNO&TP to Cincinnati.

The special train left Richmond on the afternoon of May 17, via Winston-Salem and Asheville to Chattanooga. Directors of the Alabama Great Southern, the Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific, the New Orleans and Northeastern and the New Orleans Terminal Company held board meetings at Chattanooga on the morning of May 8. William H. Skinner, vice-president of the Kentucky Utilities Company at Lexington, was elected a new director of the CNO&TP. (Southern Railway Company directors had already held a board meeting at Richmond on May 17. )

In the afternoon of May 18, all the visiting directors toured the modern $14 million freight classification and forwarding yard at Citico, which is virtually completed and already in operation.

Already familiar with the modern retarder yards on Southern Railway System lines at Knoxville and Birmingham, they saw again "how the latest equipment and methods" - speed cars from inbound trains through the "process of classification and recombining into outbound trains hurry freight on its way to our railway's customers".

Watching car journals being oiled on the approach to the hump: (left to right) AGS Director Morton H. Fry, parner RIter & Company, New York; I. Lee Pratt, superintendent terminals, Chattanooga; SOuthern Eirector Elliott W. Springs, president, The Spirngs Cotton Mills, Landcaster, S. C.; and AGS Director John S. Coleman, president, Birmingham Trust National Bank.

After the inspection of the yard, the directors were guests at the home of AGS Director of Sales Harrison for a reception where they met civic and business leaders of Chattanooga, many of whom are also customers of our railway.

Starting on the morning of May 19, the special train. carried the directors on a daylight inspection trip up the CNO&TP from Chattanooga to Cincinnati, with a stop at Somerset, Ky ., to look over the centralized traffic control installation there.

Directors who were on the special train (other than those who are railroad officers or are identified in the captions of the accompanying pictures) included: Southern Railway Director Ernest E. Norris, retired president; AGS Directors Hugh Agricola, president, First National Bank in Gadsden, Ala.; John C. Persons, chairman of the board, The First National Bank of Birmingham; and DeSales Harrison, president of The Coca-Cola Bottling Co. (Thomas) Inc., Chattanooga. Also NO&NE Director A. F. Chisolm, president, The First National Bank of Laurel, Miss.; and CNO&TP Directors Reuben B. Hays, president, First National Bank of Cincinnati, Ohio; and Gordon P. Street, president, The Wheland Company, Chattanooga.

When the inspection trip ended at Cincinnati on the afternoon of May 19, the directors of lines making up the Southern Railway System returned to their offices with up-to-date, firsthand information of substantial value to them in considering the future development of our railway.