"Taking Twenty" with the Virginian Brethren

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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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