Why Did the Norfolk & Western Hold Out Against Diesels?

In December 1953, the Norfolk and Western's shops in Roanoke finished a steam switcher, No. 244. In 1954, Trains magazine noted that not one other major American railroad got by without diesels, and the N&W kept running steam until 1960. So why did it hold out, and what finally made it give up? The railroad's own men, the coal trade press, Trains and Railway Age tell the story, from the Jawn Henry turbine to the 268 diesels a new president announced in 1958. Then where No. 611 is today, along with No. 1218 and No. 2156. Yes, the narrator is AI. I'm a train fanatic with a voice that would clear a room, so I let a robot read it. Everything else is done by hand: every fact comes from the railroad and trade press, the railroad's own papers, the historical society, the museums and the ASME, and I check every line before it goes up. No invented quotes, no made-up documents, no AI slop. Get something wrong and I'll fix it: tell me in the comments with a source. More from Locomotive Geek: Was the Allegheny Really More Powerful Than the Big Boy?    • Was the Allegheny Really More Powerful Tha...   Locomotive Geek: The railroads, one story at a time. CHAPTERS 00:00 The holdout 00:41 Coal country 02:48 The short answer 04:10 How steam paid its way 08:03 The end of steam 12:05 What's left 14:06 Why it held out SOURCES David P. Morgan in Trains: 'Faith in Steam' (November 1954) and 'It's Dungarees for the Diesel' (1953), as reprinted by Classic Trains; 'Modern Power on the N&W', Trains (April 1947) C. E. Pond, 'The Norfolk & Western's Use of Modern Steam Locomotives', Railway Mechanical Engineer (December 1946); Forbes (1 December 1946); Coal Age (December 1954); Financial World (16 November 1955) Railway Age (1949 to 1959), Traffic World and Business Week (June 1955), The Railway Gazette (11 July 1958) Norfolk & Western Historical Society steam roster; ASME landmark brochure No. 94 (May 1984); O. Winston Link's liner notes (1961); Model Railroader's railroad timeline, 1950-1989 Classic Trains ('Diesel Victory', 2006; Norfolk & Western's Big Three, 2025); Railfan & Railroad (2020, 2025); Norfolk Southern (16 April 2015); Trains (10 April 2026); WVTF/Radio IQ (26 June 2026); e-WV, The West Virginia Encyclopedia IMAGE CREDITS Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons: Historic American Engineering Record (Jet Lowe, 1993); Russell Lee (1946) and a Farm Security Administration file photo (1935); Lima Locomotive Works; postcards by David K. Johnson (1959), J. J. Bothman and the Norfolk and Western; a Du Pont advertisement. CC0: Gary Lee Todd, and Gary Todd (GP9 No. 656). Mark Levisay, CC BY 2.0: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index... https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index... https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index... https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index... https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index... https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index... https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index... https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index... Willem van Valkenburg, CC BY 2.0: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index... https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index... https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index... https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index... https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index... Bruce Fingerhood, CC BY 2.0: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index... https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index... https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index... jpmueller99, CC BY 2.0: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index... https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index... Yahya S., CC BY 2.0: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index... (c) 1992 James G. Howes, Commons Attribution licence: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index... Photos are cropped, panned or zoomed, and some have text added. The thumbnail options use photos by Gary Lee Todd, Gary Todd, James G. Howes, jpmueller99, Mark Levisay, Willem van Valkenburg and David K. Johnson, cropped with text added.