"Takin' Twenty" with the Virginian Brethren by Skip Salmon

[NW Mailing List]

Last night I had the pleasure of "Takin' Twenty" with 10 of the Brethren 
and Friends of the Virginian Railway. We continued the discussion about 
"coal crapping or cropping". I told the Brethren a story that my Dad 
told me. He lived on Hollins Road in Roanoke and the N&W Shenandoah 
Division ran behind their home. It was his, and his brother Jim's job, 
every day, to gather coal that one would "crop" off an N&W hopper and 
bring enough home in their red wagon for the night's banking of the 
"Warm Morning" heater. When my grandfather, W. B. Salmon, became a 
Christian, he decided to pay the railroad back for all that coal. He 
"took money to the General Office...and they kept it". Rail Historian, 
Louis Newton, told me that the N&W called this account their "Conscience 
Fund" and many have contributed to it.

Passed around were the May-June "NS Biz", all about employee safety and 
the "NRHS News" with a great article about the anniversary of the 611.

A correction from last week: The largest yard in the US is the UP Bailey 
Yard, not the "Berkley" as reported. Thanks to Robin R. Shavers for this 
correction.

The Brethren asked me to have some more "Friends of the Virginian 
Railway" baseball style caps made. I did and showed them last night and 
several bought them. The black hats have a mesh back (for summer), sewn 
on VGN yellow logo and Velcro adjustable strip for perfect fit. The 
proceeds of the sale of these hats go toward the renovation of the VGN 
Station in Roanoke. Contact me at gkholine at cox.net for more info.

At the N&W (and VGN) Historical Society workday at the Archives last 
week, Landon and I had the opportunity to go through several boxes of 
photos that were sent on consignment from "Bob's Photos" and separate 
out all of the Virginian photos from the N&W. We then checked to see if 
these photos were already in the Archive VGN photo section. We found 
several hundred "new" VGN photos that are now part of the N&WHS system. 
One was a great shot at Matoaka. Louis Newton helped us ID the spot and 
recalled that once when there was a derailment near Bluefield, as road 
foreman for N&W, he detoured three east-bound N&W passenger trains 
around the wreck to Matoaka. The idea was to run the trains down the VGN 
to Norcross and back on to the N&W. The first train's "K" trailing truck 
derailed on the steep interchange track. When Louis and his crew tried 
to re-track her with a re-railer, there were no spikes to be found. A 
boy standing by and watching all this excitement, exclaimed "I know were 
there are spikes" and left running. He returned shortly with an arm full 
of VGN spikes...

The Jewel from the Past is like one in Joe Hartsel's Elgin 21 jewel 
given to him by his Dad, is from September 9, 2004: "I asked if the 
Virginian had any special equipment for snow removal. 'Slick' Inge 
quickly replied 'Yes, shovels and brooms'. He and others remembered 
several deep snows and the concensious was that the VGN 'kept the trains 
rolling' all the time, even in deep snow".

I showed the Brethren a "Roanoke Times" article given to me by Louis 
Newton from December 1, 1959: "Virginian Rail Worker Retires, Dies Same 
Day". It was an account of the death of John W. Harrison, 67 who was a 
VGN section foreman at Goodview with 49 years service who retired and 
"took the west bound" on the date of the VGN-N&W merger.

I shared with the Brethren a date from George Weber's Winston-Salem NRHS 
Chapter newsletter "The Rail": Under "Lasts", "June 1, 1957, Virginian 
Class SB, 0-8-0 Number 251 is the last VGN steam locomotive to operate".

Robert "Little Abner" Glass, VGN Clerk who still lives near Sewells 
Point, sent this story: "An airline pilot wrote that on this particular 
flight he had 'hammered' his ship into the runway really hard. The 
airline had a policy that required the first officer to stand at the 
door while passengers exited, and give them a 'Thanks for flying our 
airline'. He said that in light of this bad landing, he had a hard time 
looking the passengers in the eye. Finally everyone was off the plane 
except one little old lady, walking with a cane. She said 'Sir, do you 
mind if I ask you a question? Why no m'am, answered the pilot'. 'Did we 
land or were we shot down?'"

Time to pull the pin on this one!

Departing Now from V248,

Skip Salmon

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