track (Mr. Cochran's Request for Old Postcard Imge Location)

[NW Mailing List]

Re Mr. Cochran's request for the location of an absolutely lovely old postcard image.

Memories from a half-century ago are not always reliable, but that scene appears to me to be an eastward view, looking toward Elliston, from a vantage point about a mile west of the Elliston depot. That mountain in the background, colored gray/pink by the watercolorist who colored the photograph before the postcard was printed, would then be Fort Lewis Mountain.

The question then becomes, What in the heck was the photographer standing on, to get such an elevated view ...? Or was he riding in the gondola under the Goodyear Zeplin?

Your Obscure Factoid for the day: The Telegraph Call for Elliston was "BS." That call was assigned back in the day when the name of the place was Big Spring, and it was never changed. If memory serves me correctly, I believe our friend, Mr. Chuck Akers, was the BurgerMeister at Big Spring for the term 1896-1898.

One of my memories from Elliston... It was either my first or second pay traip as a Brakeman.  I was braking the head end of a westbound hopper train which left Roanoke shortly after dark. The Engineman was an old crab named Ralph Thompson, who barely spoke to the head end brakeman. (He was later pronmoted to Asst Road Foreman of Engines somewhere, and I never heard of him thereafter.)  We had a car on the head end of the train to be set off at the Big Spring Mill, and I had to use the hand crossover to get to the mill track.  When we finished the set off, I only restored one end of the crossover, coupled up, and away we went.  By oversight, I had left the other end of the crossover open.  Some time later, No. 18 came down on a red board and found the crossover switch open, and the Fireman closed it and reported it to the Train Dispatcher.  I heard about it several weeks later in what we called "cab track talk" (i.e. idle chatter.)  In today's world, I would receive a royal blisterin
 g for such an oversight.  I have often wondered what preserved this newbie from wrath for such an act of negligence. That event was 61 years ago. 

-- abram burnett
Digital Content Creator down at the Tik-Tok Turnip Patch