Fwd: [VirginianRailwayEnthusiasts] "Takin' Twenty with the Virginian Brethren"

[NW Mailing List]

--
Skip Salmon

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To: VirginianRailwayEnthusiasts at yahoogroups.com
From: "Charles E. Salmon, Jr." <gkholine at cox.net>
Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2008 12:20:47 -0000
Subject: [VirginianRailwayEnthusiasts] "Takin' Twenty with the Virginian Brethren"

Last night I had the pleasure of "Takin' Twenty" with 9 of the
Brethren and Friends of the Virginian Railway. We signed a Get Well
Card for Tom "Cornbread" Victory, who is recovering from hip surgery
at Friendship Manor Rehab, 327 Hershberger Road, Roanoke, VA 24012.
I am sure he would like to hear from you, also. Mention in the
address that he is in room 1013. Irontically, the card that we sent
has a photo of Cornbread showing the other Brethren a broken
artificial hip joint removed from our own Rufus Wingfield...

The big discussion of the night was the fact that recently CSX
stock has passed NS in purchasing price. Yesterday CSX closed at
$56.97 and NS at $54.44 per share. This prompted stories of past
battles between VGN and C&O and future speculation about mergers...no
one mentioned that the two rail giants merge, but which one would end
up as a partner of BNSF or UP. The fact that N&W and VGN started
the "modern mergers" in 1959 never came up!

In response to some inquiries this last week, I spoke to Greely
Wyatt, VGN Electrical guru, about whether the FM Trainmasters would
hook up with MU cables and run with N&W Alco RS11s and EMD GP9s after
the merger. Seems that the FM 27 pin trainline circuits were
assigned different pins in the MU receptacles from EMD or Alco. So
at the time of merger, they would not multiple unit electrically.
Physically, the connection could be made but the circuits were in
different pin locations. Wyatt said that the "FM wiring was
eventually modified to be compatible with the Alcos and EMDs, even
though it was very rare that they ran in the same consist".

I passed around several pages of magazine ads from the 1930s
that also sparked some discussion. The two that "jumped out" were
about Lard and how to get rid of fat in the human body. The Lard one
showed a family, Mom and Dad holding a small boy at the beach and it
read "They're Happy, because they eat Lard". The second was an
advertisement for a way to "always stay thin". It was for a company
that sold tape worms. Of course gas was not $3 a gallon at the time
either.

Also shown to the Brethren was a letter on offical state
stationery from VA State Senator John Edwards (no relation to
presidential candidate Edwards from North Carolina). John and I went
to school together through high school. The letter thanked me for my
letter regarding a resolution that the Brethren and I want him to
submit to the Virginia General Assembly to make our area of the
state "Virginia's Rail Heritage Region". This letter was
confirmation that he will introduce the resolution in the next
session.

Since Cornbread is going to be "laid up" for a while until his
new hip heals, he is considering taking up playing the piano that he
has. Recently he inquired about someone who could tune his piano.
One of the Brethren suggested a fellow who could do the job.
Cornbread called him and the man said "Yes, I can tune a piano, I can
tune anything". This prompted Cornbread to respond, "But can you tuna
fish?"

Time to pull the pin on this one!

Departing Now,

Skip Salmon



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