"Takin' Twenty" with the Virginian Brethren by Skip Salmon

[NW Mailing List]

Last night I had the pleasure of "Takin' Twenty" with ten of the 
Brethren and Friends of the Virginian Railway. The session started off 
with a discussion of an unusual item found at the Virginian Station 
yesterday while I was getting some paint samples of the VGN orange. I 
have posted a photo of the wooden "tuning fork" looking item found, on 
this site under "Skip's Photos". There are several of these in the fire 
damaged material at the Station. They are obviously hand made and have 
some particular use. None of the Brethren could ID it but Billy Daniels 
suggested that "it could be an ignition key for a VGN Steam engine". 
Anybody out there know what this item is???

Passed around was the June "Trains" magazine that has two very 
interesting items. The first is an article by Fred W. Frailey about the 
NS Intermodal, which says that "the Crescent Corridor will be Wick 
Moorman's crowning achievement". The second could revolutionize the rail 
industry: An article "Car coupling goes hands-free" about a new system 
of building trains automatically. "The remote-controlled cut lever, 
remote-controlled angle cock, and tri-coupler use automation and 
wireless technology to enable train crews to set out cars without having 
to physically touch the angle cock or cut lever. Conversely, a train 
crew could also couple up to railcars and let the tri-coupler 
automatically make the connections between cars". No more "carpecks" 
going between the rails to "lace up trains"....

We talked about this Saturday's "Roanoke Rails, a celebration on the N&W 
Mainline" with a night photo shoot at the O. Winston Link Museum and VMT 
having lots of activities including motor car rides. The 611 will be 
displayed along with the Roanoke Chapter NRHS 611 tool car and N&W 
Caboose. One $12 ticket is good for all events in Roanoke plus lots of 
events at the C&O Railway Heritage Center in Clifton Forge. For more 
information call 540-982-5465.

The ebay report this time includes sale of: C&O Steam engine pulling a 
VGN coal train slide for $88.00; VGN 1953 Public Timetable for $32.77; 
35mm slide of VGN #138 at Roanoke in 1957 for $26.50; and a VGN safety 
rule book with linen tags and misc. for $76.01.

For show and tell I also showed the Brethren my latest VGN purchase, a 
framed photo of a coal train at Kumis pulled by an EL-2B. This is 
probably my favorite train watching site and my most photographed, but 
this photo has a gentlemen in the cab in a white shirt and tie...could 
it be "Slick"?

The Jewel from the Past, like one in John Specht's Hamilton 992B, 21 
jewel, given to him by his father, who was Roundhouse Foreman in 
Bellevue, is from August 5, 2004: "A question from Pete Groom was 
addressed: Does anyone have any information or stories about how well 
the 4-axle FMs did, replacing the AGs, on east bound coal trains out of 
Roanoke? A pair of them had about the same tractive effort but well less 
that half the horsepower of a single AG. Yardmaster Ruf Wingfield stated 
that the AGs were limited to 175 cars of coal but no limit on tonnage; 2 
FM H16-44s were limited to 14,428 tons or 150 or so hoppers. 'Slick' 
Inge, Trainmaster, said that if a sparrow landed on the cab, the train 
would stall".

I showed the Brethren a photo sent to me by my pal, John Snidow of a CN 
Dash 9 ejecting the top of a power assembly allowing the piston from 
that cylinder to be thrown free by the force of the failure. It was 
ejected so violently that it traveled through the air and crashed 
through the roof of a nearby home where it imbedded itself in an 
interior wall. Of course the Brethren countered that the Fairbanks Morse 
diesels with opposing pistons just exploded, upon failure, with no 
nearby homes being damaged...

The April 23, 2010 "Fort-Worth Star" reported that Amtrak is using an 
80% diesel and 20% bio-diesel fuel mix made from beef by-products on the 
"Heartland Flyer" from Oklahoma City to Fort Worth. If this test works 
out, Amtrak plans to use the 80/20 bio-diesel beef mix on all of their 
trains. Some suggested that instead of Amtrak ticket holders 
anticipating being on time rarely, with this new fuel, they can expect 
to be on time medium-rarely.

Time to pull the pin on this one!

Departing Now from V-248,

Skip Salmon


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