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

NW Mailing List nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org
Thu Oct 14 09:05:04 EDT 2010




Last night I had the pleasure of "Takin Twenty" with five of the
Brethren and Friends of the Virginian Railway. Our number was low
because several of our "regulars" are on the sick list.

The Brethren enjoyed a photo I showed them of the Virginian G5 low gon
#22019 that now stands out with "V I R G I N I A N" in white on black
sparkling to all who pass by the Victoria Rail Park in Victoria. Ken
Miller is a real Friend of the Virginian Railway and is to be commended
for seeing that this car and the VGN caboose at the Station Museum in
Princeton, now have the proper Virginian livery on display.

In response from last week's report, John sent this comment: "I really
want to Thank You and the Virginian Brethren for confirming what I
thought must have been the unloading point for the East Bound Virginian
troop trains I saw on the video 'Virginian Vignettes'. I had always
thought that these trains had taken the military personnel to either
General Booth Boulevard, or to the former Hampton Boulevard Army Supply
Depot". John owns property just west of Abilene and recognized scenes
from the video shot near his property.

The Jewel from the Past is from May 27, 2004: "Also it was common for
workers to work until death on the Virginian. Abe Carnell from Victoria,
conductor, worked until his late 80s. He died on his caboose going from
Roanoke to Victoria. His brakeman, 'Botsy' Johnson, said that on the
trip he died, Abe stated 'they're after my seniority'. Keith Sowder said
that he observed Abe in the yard in Norfolk pulling up his pant leg to
pull his leg over the rails when crossing them".

I passed around an article from Monday's "Roanoke Times" with a photo
caption that read: "The impression prevails among Jefferson street
property owners that this thoroughfare is destined to become the great
business thoroughfare of Roanoke, with the Norfolk & Western on one end
and the Virginian at the other". Also form "75 years ago today": "One of
the largest mammals ever captured, the famous whale of San Clemente, is
now on exhibit in a specially constructed railway car at the Virginian
station".

A lot of the conversation was about the Rail Days event in Appomattox
last week end. Last Friday, Roanoke Chapter NRHS member and Norfolk
Southern engineer, Percy Wilkins was engineer on a train made up of
Chapter GP30 #522, N&W tool car #1407, N&W caboose #518409 and "just in
case" NS GP38 #5079. I showed the Brethren several photos of this train
on her way to Appomattox. On Saturday and Sunday I sold Virginian items
on the tool car, met many former VGN employees and answered lots of
questions about our beloved fallen flag. One small boy, when he noticed
a set of 5-chime horns off an Alco diesel locomotive, commented to his
Dad "look at those horns Dad". His father responded, "they are really
something, Nathan". Both of them were amazed when I showed them the name
"Nathan" on the horns. Our engineer entertained a lot of the younger
visitors by letting them ring the large brass steam locomotive bell on
display. He told all of them that he was named after two famous engines
that most children of today are familiar: Percy and Thomas the Tank
engine. The Lynchburg "News and Advance" estimated that over 20,000
attended the two day event. Percy Thomas Wilkins was able to engineer
our train safely back to Roanoke on Sunday night.

We or course discussed the rescue of the miners in Chile, even as we
were having supper. This led to a discussion by Wis Sowder and Ken
McLain about unloading coal at Sewells Point. Ken had the job of
ordering the hoppers from the yard to "blend" the coal for incoming
ships. Wis and Ken remembered that a lot of the ships were from Japan.
Ken said that most of them had two names and the second part of the name
was "Maru or something similar". He said that a Japanese ship named the
"Maru" once made a very perilous journey, so they named all of their
coal ships after that one.

One of the last visitors to the tool car on Sunday in Appomattox was a
Russian rail engineer and his interpreter. I asked what type of
locomotive did he operate. When the answer was "electric", I immediately
started talking about the Virginian electrics. Nothing seemed to be
getting through until I mentioned the word "pantograph". His eyes began
to sparkle and I now have a new Russian rail friend!

Time to pull the pin on this one!

Departing Now from V248,

Skip Salmon

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