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

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Skip Salmon

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To: VirginianRailwayEnthusiasts at yahoogroups.com
From: "Charles E. Salmon, Jr." <gkholine at cox.net>
Date: Thu, 29 May 2008 12:21:01 -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.

I passed around the May-June "Turntable Times" to get the
Brethren's take on the article "Kilroy Was Here", about a piece of
graffiti that seemed to go ahead of our soldiers around the world in
WWII and appeared on almost every box car in the nation. Most,
especially those who served in the war, were very familiar with the
famous American icon who even impressed Russian leader Stalin, who
asked Mr. Roosevelt at the Potsdam Conference in 1945, "Who is
Kilroy". The famous graffiti of a "sap with a big nose peering over
a wall" was linked in the article to James Kilroy from Halifax,
Massachusetts. James proved, in a contest after the war, that he had
began this graffiti to identify finished rivets on ships in the
nearby shipyard. Just checking them with chalk only resulted in the
riveter removing the check so he could get paid twice for setting the
rivet. Kilroy won a trolly car in the contest and gave it to his 9
children as a Christmas gift. The newsletter also provoked a
question from the Brethren. Its cover shows an N&W combination train
crossing the N&W main line near Christiansburg on the "Huckleberry"
on its way to cross the VGN near Merrimac and on to Blacksburg. The
question was why was it called the Huckleberry? Answer given by many
was that it was so slow, you could pick huckleberries while waiting
to ride it.

The Brethren were amused when told of the recent discussion on
this and other sites that John D. Rockefeller was the "big bucks"
behind the Tidewater or Virginian Railway. None had ever heard this
before.

I asked them about the rail strike of 1946, and several
remembered accounts of President Truman's handling it. Raymond East
told the Brethren about a recent PBS feature, with film, of Mr.
Truman when he was addressing a Joint Session of Congress. He stated
that he would end the strike by "inducting every rail worker in the
country into the US Army" and was handed a note before his speach was
finished. He read the note that said "The rail strike is over!"

Landon Gregory responded to recent discussion from our readers
about different colored lantern globes used on the line. He
remembered that during the day, operators and station agents used
green and white flags to stop passenger trains at "flag stops". At
night they used a special lantern with a green and clear globe. The
green was painted diagonally to make a green/clear globe. I bet one
of these would bring a premium price on ebay!

Bob Rowland told about a VGN yardmaster, I'll call him "Pete",
who would ask him before the beginning of the shift if he would like
to "share a pint". Bob, being the clerk, would have to go to the ABC
store and purchase the bottle. Bob said that at the end of his
shift, his half of the pint had become more like a "swallow".

We were discussing the fact that many of the Brethren are either
already 80 or will soon be 80. Someone asked Cornbread what was his
birthdate? He answered "August 16th". He was then asked "What
year?" He answered "Every one so far!"

Think I'll pull the pin on this one.

Departing Now,

Skip Salmon





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