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

[NW Mailing List]

Last night I had the pleasure of "Takin' Twenty" with seven of the 
Brethren and Friends of the Virginian Railway. We signed Happy Birthday 
cards for Landon Gregory and Felix Price. Landon is one of the youngest 
of the Brethren and started out using Morris Code as an operator in 
Abilene, VA. Landon worked for the VGN, N&W and NS as a dispatcher and 
retired from NS as Chief Dispatcher, Virginia Division. He turned 74 
yesterday. Felix started his VGN career in Narrows as a laborer at the 
Power Plant. He became a turbine operator there until after the 
electrics were retired, and moved to Roanoke Shops. In Roanoke he worked 
as an electrician in the line gang maintaining N&W power lines. He 
retired from NS in 1985 with 36 years service. Felix turned 85 yesterday.

Attending with us for the first time was famous Virginian model decal 
designer Bill Mosteller and his friend Sarah who is visiting from 
Seattle. Bill operates Great Decals in Falls Church, VA and provides HO 
and N scale modelers some of the best and most accurate decals for their 
models in the world. All of his work can be seen at <greatdecals.com>. 
Bill is an avid rail fan and travels a lot taking part in model train 
operations. He is also active in the Sherlock Holmes Society. He told us 
last night that recently, a friend, dressed in period attire as Dr. 
Watson, gave him a ride to a meeting!

Passed around was Aubrey's new book "Virginian Railway Pictorial, 
Pictures and Stories". The Brethren were impressed with this account of 
their beloved fallen flag line. Raymond East showed us on page 43 an H. 
Reid photo of a VGN mixed train west of Altavista, not far from where he 
grew up. He pointed out the water barrel on the platform attached to the 
span over the Staunton(Roanoke) River. Raymond remembered track walkers 
inspecting the tracks and if a recent passing steam engine's cinders 
caused any ties on the bridge to become lighted from a hot spark, the 
water was there for him to put it out. Raymond recalled that a cone 
shaped container was used instead of a standard bucket because "the 
regular buckets wouldn't stay there very long".

I have posted on this site under "Skip's Photos" a photo I took last 
Saturday and passed around last night. It shows the Watuaga Valley NRHS 
"Blue Ridge Special" from Spencer to Roanoke and return going through 
Goodview, VA, MP V228 on the old VGN. This train, designated #976 by NS, 
had three Amtrak 4200 HP diesels and 25 cars with almost 1,000 
passengers! Henry Huttleston Rogers would be proud. This entire train 
was "turned on the Campbell Ave. wye" in Roanoke...something to see! We 
will have 17 of these cars and the Amtrak locomotives this weekend for 
our trips to Danville and Bluefield. Bluefield is sold out but we have a 
few tickets left for the Danville trip. If interested, call 540 774 0611.

 From last week's report, the Celco switcher was an EMD NW-2 and NOT an 
Alco, as I reported. Thanks to Bill Honeycutt for this correction.

The Jewel from the Past is from November 18, 2004: "I told of reading 
one of the VGN files that I recently purchased, telling about the 
National Aeronautical Commission's instructions that VGN's 88,000 volt 
transmission line had to be no closer than 6,000 feet from any airport 
building. Also in 1947, the Federal Government tried to get the rail 
lines, including VGN, to put the name of all station locations on the 
roof of their stations in large white letters to assist in 'Dead 
Reckoning' aviation navigation".

Also passed around was a flyer for our upcoming "Candy Cane Shifter". 
The Roanoke Chapter NRHS will give free caboose train rides on the Silk 
Mill lead on December 11, 2010 for friends and family. Rumor has it that 
Santa himself may be our engineer! If interested, contact me by email 
(gkholine at cox.net) and I will send a flyer with a map.

Of course there was a "buzz" last night about Tuesday's elections. Glen 
McLain, VGN clerk who decided to leave after the N&W merger and who 
brings our jokes each Wednesday night, had the best quip of the night: 
"I wrote in 'nobody' on a absentee ballot because all of the candidates 
in my district said 'nobody' can beat me!"

Time to pull the pin on this one!

Departing Now from V248,

Skip Salmon

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