"Taking Twenty" with the Virginian Brethren

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Last night I had the pleasure of "Takin' Twenty" with nine of the Brethren 
and Friends of the Virginian Railway. Attending for the first time were 
Gibson Davis and Tom Guilliams. Gibson is the grandson of Malcomb Vaughn, 
who was a machinist on the Virginian Railway in Victoria and Roanoke. "Gib" 
attended the N&WHS Convention in Roanoke this year and accepted my 
invitation to "Take Twenty" with the Brethren. He was also a good friend of 
Harry Dixon, a well-known N&W Storekeeper in Roanoke who lost an arm in 
France just after landing on Omaha Beach on D-Day. I worked with Harry at 
Roanoke Shops and he could do more work with one arm than most could do 
with two. Tom Guilliams retired from NS as a yard engineer and worked with 
Ruf and Raymond on the "W side" after the merger.

Glen McLain, retired VGN clerk and designated joke man for the sessions, 
brought a great photo of a VGN tender used with the AGs that had a 7 axles 
(one 4 axle truck and one 3 axle truck). These tenders carried 26,500 
gallons of water. We figured this means they carried about 90 tons of water 
and 25 tons of coal....about the same load as a G4 gon! This prompted Ruf 
to tell about "14428". This was the maximum tonnage that two Fairbanks 
Morse diesel locomotives could pull out of Roanoke going east. However, the 
AG class 2-6-6-6 steam locomotives were limited to 175 hoppers, "regardless 
of tonnage". He also said that Tidewater coal was not weighed in Roanoke 
but at Sewalls Point. He said that "commercial-non Tidewater" coal was 
weighed in Princeton until 1940 and in Roanoke after 1940. Ruf said that 
VGN conductor Joe Booth once stated that with one of those 175 car coal 
trains and one AG, "if a sparrow lit on the cab, we would stall".

I told the Brethren about NS CEO Wick Moorman's speech at the Governor's 
Conference last week in Biloxi, Mississippi where he said "freight volumns 
in this country are projected to grow 88% by 2035". Also passed around was 
Gordon Hamilton's reprint of the December 18, 1909 "Bluefield Daily 
Telegraph" (from "Roanoke World") about the record mile long coal train 
that VGN pulled out of Roanoke. The train had 120 steel 50-ton hoppers and 
"while it was not generally known, many people were attracted to the depot 
to see the longest loaded train in the world".

The DVDs shown were taken last Thursday and Friday when my grandson Hunter 
and I "camped out" (on private property with permission) at the Yateman 
Viaduct. It is west of Wabun and east of Kumis on the VGN; west of Glenvar 
and east of Singer on the N&W where the VGN crossed over the N&W. We tried 
to get a train on the bridge (on the old VGN) with one going under the 
bridge on the old N&W. We filmed 13 trains but could not get the shot of 
two as planned. West of this bridge, the VGN was north of the N&W and east 
of this bridge, VGN was south of N&W. One of the DVDs showed for sure how 
much clearance is available for the double stack trains. These videos 
prompted Tom Guilliams to tell about being involved in a famous N&W wreck 
where he, as yard engineer, went to get a "hogged" train near Riverside, 
just west of Yateman Viaduct. After passing a dragging equipment detector 
at Wabun and not getting a "clear" on the radio, a road foreman, who was 
running the locomotive at the time, stopped the train in Salem. While 
stopped, the train was "angle cocked" and cut in two. When the train got to 
Norwich, the rear that was cut off and bottled, caught up and crashed back 
into the train.

The "camp-out" at the Yateman Viaduct in July reminds me of a famous quote 
of New York Yankee great Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra: "It ain't the heat, 
it's the humility".

Time to pull the pin on this one!

Departing Now from V248,

Skip Salmon





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