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

NW Mailing List nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org
Thu Jan 13 07:01:59 EST 2011


Last night I had the pleasure of "Takin' Twenty" with nine of the Brethren
and Friends of the Virginian Railway. There was a new item on the menu at
Country Cookin': "Wild Alaskan Salmon". Of course I had to try it, and of
course I got a lot of comments about cannibalism.

In response from our discussion about time claims, someone offered an
account of a VGN engineer who, upon entering the Pearly Gates, was greeted
by Saint Peter himself, and told "you are the oldest railroad engineer here
at 128". He replied, "I am only 74". Saint Peter replied..."we counted your
time claims!"

For "Show and Tell" I took a Norfolk Southern switch lock found on the roof
of the Virginian Station by a workman. I thought it would be interesting to
compare this current one and its key to the old VGN brass heartshaped one
used by "Cornbread", "Slick" and the others. I have posted a photo of the
comparison on this site under "Skip's Photos" and you can click "new photo"
at the top of this page to also see it. The major difference, besides one
being brass and the other steel, is that the NS lock weights over a pound
more than the VGN.

Sometime recently, and to my surprise, the value of CSX stock has started
to exceed that of NS stock. Yesterday CSX closed at $68.71 and NS at
$65.40. This prompted a discussion by the Brethren who own some of the latter.

The Jewel from the Past is from January 13, 2005: "Jimmy Whittaker said
that after the war, there was a 'coal rush' and every empty hopper
available was pressed into service. He remembers marking the N&W hoppers as
'VGN' on the switch lists and sending them back to the mines. He also
remembered Jesse Bellflower, an operator who would work any operator's
position on the VGN at any time. When asked by the Chief Dispatcher for his
current address, Jesse would respond 'trains 3 & 4'".

For any of you who do not already know, there is a 24 hour rail camera
posted at the Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke. It takes a
current shot of trains going under the 2nd Street Bridge (Commerce St.)
heading east down the Norfolk Division; north up the Shenandoah Division
and south down the Winston-Salem District, and all westbound trains on the
old N&W into Roanoke. To view this , go to: www.nwhs.org and click on "VRHR
RailCAM".

Recently I had another encounter with my US Postal worker assigned to
deliver and pick up mail at my mail box. After the last snow, as in the
past, he left me a notice that I need to clear out a 30 foot long access to
my mailbox. What ever happened to the postal creed: "Neither snow nor rain
nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion
of their appointed rounds". I looked it up...Wikipedia says "The US Postal
Service has no official creed or motto". Scotty talked about gloomy cold
windy nights when he was a brakeman on a local delivery crew and was
required to wear rain suits to keep the wind at bay. He said before they
had radios, a 4-man crew faithfully delivered long cuts of box cars. They
had to ride on top of the cars to relay signals back to the locomotive. The
man nearest the locomotive and engine was the "Jack Man" who gave signals
to the engineer; there was the "Middle Man" and the "Field Man" who was on
the last car. I say the "Jackman, "Middle Man" and "Field Man" were real
"couriers who kept their appointed rounds".

Time top pull the pin on this one!

Departing Now from V248,

Skip Salmon

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