"Taking Twenty" with the Virginian Brethren

NW Mailing List nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org
Thu Mar 26 14:37:55 EDT 2009


Last night I had the pleasure of "Takin' Twenty" with ten of the Brethren
and Friends of the Virginian Railway. I continued to show various local NS
trains on VGN tracks and Tom "Cornbread" Victory's "Talkin' to the
Brethren" interview. Cornbread told the camera that when he came to Roanoke
from Murfresboro, Tennessee in 1944, he thought all of the railroads in
Roanoke were the same line, and "knew nothing of the N&W", when he applied
for a job at the VGN Yard Office in Roanoke. Billy Daniel's grandson
Keegan, now a regular with us, especially liked the MW equipment shown in a
Kumis video.

One train shown was eastbound NS22A double-stack (followed closely by
second section 12A) near the VGN Tinker Creek Connection. This train was
Norfolk-bound but passed under the overhead signals near Southern States
west of Vinton, and a "Stop and Stay" at a very low speed. A loud "heated"
discussion by the Brethren brought out that it was probably running on a
"Restricted" and had stopped, shortly before I saw it the first time. This
prompted a restaurant customer from outside our area to join us. He heard
our debate and said that he was a retired NS engineer off the Shenandoah
Division, and agreed with our explanation of "runnin' the red board near
the Connection".

I told the Brethren that Jim Overholser announced at the Roanoke Chapter
NRHS monthly meeting last Thursday, that the first Amtrak Lynchburg to
Washington train (additional to the Crescent) will depart at 5:05 AM on
October first. This is the first step of the proposed TransDominion Express
that one day may go from Roanoke to Washington and include Bristol and
Richmond also.

Passed around was a photo of VGN EL-C #235 (repainted and numbered by N&W)
shortly after the merger at the VGN Station in Roanoke. This week in
Roanoke's "The Roanoke Times" under "100 years ago today" was a short
article of 3-23-1909 stating that A. N. Walkup of Richmond was awarded the
contract to build the VGN Passenger Station in Roanoke for $25,000. I
contacted the newspaper and got a copy of the article and showed the
Brethren. It has a large headline "Contract Awarded for New Station". When
Raymond East saw it, he said "I thought you all said that it would take 2.3
million to do it". Landon Gregory and I, almost immediately and in unison
said "we've spent more than 25,000 so far in preparations".

Also passed around was a copy of this year's annual "Darwin Awards". In
fifth place was an award concerning a train. "An American teenager was in
the hospital recovering from serious head wounds received from an oncoming
train. When asked how he received the injuries, the lad told police that he
was simply trying to see how close he could get his head to a moving train
before he was hit."

There was also a discussion about NS Chariman and Chief Executive Charles
"Wick" Mooreman's published salary and total annual benefits of
approximately $14 million. Ruf Wingfield said that it was "hard to compare
his VGN retirement pension with numbers that big".

Ken McLain told the Brethren that when he was a lad, his family was so poor
that they could not afford such things as a laxative. "When I got
constipated, they just put me on the toilet and told me ghost stories".

Time to pull the pin on this one!

Departing Now from V248,

Skip Salmon








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