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

[NW Mailing List]

Last night I had the pleasure of "Takin' Twenty" with nine of the Brethren 
and Friends of the Virginian Railway. Former Virginian Master Mechanic 
Russell McDaniel brought his son-in-law Richard Hagood with him. Russell 
was the center of attention telling us more details about the famous 
"runaway" at Kopperston, when a brand new Fairbanks Morse Trainmaster came 
down the grade and turned over at the second curve. Russell, who was 
working as Assistant General Forman at Mullins at the time (Walter Grigg 
was the General Foreman), was dispatched on the Kopperston run to 
"troubleshoot" a report of independent brake failure on the unit. When they 
reached Kopperston mine, Russell gave the air brake system a "going over" 
but could not find anything wrong. The brakes then worked OK. He decided to 
take the locomotive back to Mullins, and told the shop personnel to hold 
the unit over until he got back the next day to check it our more 
thoroughly. Returning the second day, Russell could not find the unit, and 
discovered it had been dispatched to Kopperston again! "I got on the 
dispatch line to order the unit out of service, when I heard engineer 
"Tubby' Murdock on the line say 'Nobody's hurt, send the derrick to get it 
out of the ditch'". Later Russell found out that Murdock observed the speed 
to be over 60MPH when he made the ride down the grade. "Tubby" also tried 
to tie up the handbrake and actually broke the handbrake chain in his 
attempt. This brake failure was caused by a sticking valve in the 24-RL air 
brake system and all FMs across the nation were "recalled" to correct the 
problem.

I asked the Brethren their memories of the different horns on the VGN 
electric locomotives. I recall the Squareheads having sort of a single note 
whistle shrill, but you could hear them coming for quite a long way with 
all that "clanking" of the side rods. It was agreed that the EL-2b and 
EL-Cs had a three-chime diesel horn similar to the Trainmasters. Doug Bess 
asked about the electric locomotive horn sounds. He has a great web site 
for you to peruse: www.WVRails.com

Passed around was a photo of yours truly sitting in the engineer's seat of 
the Southern #4501 when she was in Roanoke Shops in September 1977; don't 
remember the occasion. This is the same steam locomotive that Johnny Cash 
used on his TV movie, and was on the N&W Coalwood, WV Branch in the movie 
"October Sky". Also passed was a 1952 post card showing an N&W passenger 
train eastbound, just past the Big Spring Mill at Elliston, VA. Recently 
two local boys were struck and killed on a trestle near the Mill, by a 
westbound NS hopper train. This card shows the curve and illustrates how 
important it is for all to stay off live tracks, especially bridges. This 
location is just south of Lafayette on the old VGN NS Whitethorne District.

 From last week I got several guesses about who was the third famous 
American in the Japanese "banzai charge" mystery. Among the guesses were 
Casey Jones, Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller, and Dizzy Dean. The 
correct answer is Roy Acuff, who made the "Wabash Cannonball" and "Life is 
Like a Mountain Railway" regulars on the "Grand Ole Opry".

The Jewel from the Past is from March 10, 2005: "Walter Grigg and some of 
the Brethren were commenting about how much Victoria has changed since the 
merger, with the only tracks in town 'now the ones holding up the VGN 
caboose 342'. He mentioned that his home-town of Purdy, VA was 'worse than 
Victoria'. Walter also remembered he had been given a framed photo, by the 
manufacturer, of the EL-Cs when he was Assistant Superintendent Motive 
Power in Princeton. He was in Roanoke at the time of the merger and when he 
went back to Princeton to collect the photo, it had disappeared".

I got a great response from our discussion last week of "what if" the VGN 
and NYC merger had occurred in 1911. Lloyd Lewis responded "if the 
situation had been slightly different in the late fifties, why could not 
the VGN have bought out the N&W?"

I watched the Spike TV premier of their documentary "COAL" last night. The 
Cobolt Coal Company near Welch is mining a seam of rich coal (for steel 
making) that is 20 to 42 inches high and the show is their story. It 
reminded me of the film "October Sky". This movie was also about mining in 
McDowell County, WV, with Homer Hickam and the "Rocket Boys". One of my 
favorite parts was when Homer and the boys "released one of the N&W spur 
track rails on its own recognizance". When the local switcher came by, the 
famous railway photographer O. Winston Link is at the throttle in the N&W 
painted #4501. "Prodigious!"

Time to pull the pin on this one!

Departing Now from V248,

Skip Salmon

CCCLXI

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