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

[NW Mailing List]

Last night I had the pleasure of "Takin Twenty" with eleven of the Brethren
and Friends of the Virginian Railway. About the time of the start of our
meeting, the skies opened up, and for several minutes we had a tremendous
storm. People were staying inside the restaurant and their cars. When Glen
McLain finally got out and came in, he commented " I feel like I just drove
through a three mile long car wash!"

I asked the Brethren about VGN date nails, since I recently got in inquiry
as how to tell N&W from VGN. We came to the conclusion that the 1940 to
1958 VGN date nails which were installed with cross ties to indicate the
year of their installation, were all round shafted with round heads. The
N&W nails have three divisions: 1921-1932 with square heads and square
shafts; 1933 through 1953 with oval heads and rectangular shafts and 1954
through 1960 with round heads and round shafts, similar to the VGN. The
rarest two nails are the N&W 1921 and 1960 which was bought but not use).
We also agreed that after the December 1959 merger, N&W took up a lot of
VGN track, ties and all, and transplanted some on old N&W territory so
finding an N&W nail in a VGN location was not unusual. Also there were
accounts of some MOW personnel swapping nails between the two lines.

The answer to last week's question is a brake stick. The new NS tool used
to apply and release car handbrakes from the ground are telescopic and very
light, unlike the baseball-bat style used by early VGN brakeman on "stem
winders". Each of the new Heritage units have a bracket on board the left
side near the long hood end for such a device. Correct answers were given
by Jim Overholster, Jeff Sanders and Todd Arnette.

Raymond East told about firing on one of the VGN 400s once, between
Victoria and Roanoke, and when Stone Mountain presented a challenge for the
load, his engineer, H. C. "Clay" Nelson, assisted him by shoveling some
coal into the firebox.

Eddie Mooneyham joined us and brought "goodies" for the Brethren from the
festivities at Spencer. He handed out copies of the official NS Southern
Heritage Locomotives "A Family Portrait- July 3 & 4" information sheets. He
also gave the Brethren sets of Heritage Locomotive cards similar to
baseball cards. Eddie told of his adventures at Spencer working with the
staff there, during this historical rail event.

Passed around was the latest N&W (and VGN) Historical Society "The Arrow".
Also passed around were several photos I took of the NS Heritage Virginian
loco #1069. The first was taken last Friday when she made her first revenue
run, with NS 814, a Tidewater coal train out of Roanoke, with engineer
Mickey Wentzel at the throttle. I got her again after being given a
"heads-up" by one of you (you know who you are...thanks). This time she is
on the lead of NS821, MT Hopper train. I got a great shot of an engineer at
Shaffers Crossing actually taking a photo of this beauty before boarding,
and heading west.

The Jewel from the Past is from my "Arrow" article "M-Day", comments by the
Brethren about the 12-1-59 merger day: "December 1, 1959 was a day,
destined to go down in rail history as one of the most important dates. It
was the day chosen by the powers to be, to merge two of the best coal
hauling rail lines ever to move a hopper toward the Atlantic Ocean. This
was the date chosen to combine the creation of Henry Huttleston Rogers'
Virginian Railway, and the powerful Norfolk and Western, under the helm of
Stuart Saunders. During the first great "War to end all Wars', WWI, the VGN
jointly operated with the N&W under the USRA's wartime takeover of the
Pocahontas Rail lines. This was probably the model that was kept in mind
when the N&W accountants and lawyers laid the framework for the 1959
interlocking."

At the N&W (and VGN) Historical Society Archives work session last week, I
worked on some of the VGN AFEs and discovered an interesting fact: The VGN
RWY had, at one time, two house trailers for the use of MOW forces. One was
"garaged" in Virginia and the other was "garaged" in West Virginia. Also in
June 1946, a motor scooter was purchased for the VGN Norfolk Freight
Station, but it was retired (wore our?) by April 1947.

Then there's this: An 8-year-old girl went to her grandfather, who was
working in the yard, and asked him "Grandpa, what is couple sex?" The
grandfather was surprised that she would ask such a question, but decided
that if she's old enough to know to ask the question, then she's old enough
to get a straight answer. Steeling himself to leave nothing out, he
proceeded to tell her all about the birds and bees. When he finished
explaining, the little girl was looking at him with her mouth open, eyes
wide in amazement. Seeing the look on her face, he asked her, "Why did you
ask this question, honey?" The little girl replied, "Grandma says that
dinner will be ready in just a couple secs...

Time to pull the pin on this one!

Departing Now from V248,

Skip Salmon

CDXXIX

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