"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. Most of the talk of the night was
about the Tuesday election. Several of the Brethren are concerned about the
future of rail coal hauling by NS, and how it will affect their NS stock,
which dropped over $1.50 per share yesterday.


>From my closing comment last week about the election, I got several

replies. Two agreed with my comment about considering the future of coal
when casting a ballot, by voting Yes for Coal. By the way, the "Vote Yes
for Coal" idea came from my seeing a bumper sticker on the back of a
Norfolk Southern vehicle. However, I did get one objection to my comment as
it relates to this report, from a reader who feels I should not mix
politics with Virginian Railway discussions. I stand by my support for
coal, and feel since the VGN RWY was built to haul coal, it is definitely
relevant to the Brethren's and my future. This person also objected to my
using Mr. Obama's middle name.

The Jewel from the past is from June 28, 2006 when I showed the DVD
"Hooters on Blue Ridge" to the Brethren: "One of the most unusual shots on
the DVD 'Hooters on Blue Ridge' shows the N&W steam turbine 'Jawn Henry'
being used as a pusher on a coal train at Blue Ridge, VA. This prompted
Keith Sowder and 'Cornbread' Victory to say that once they saw the 'Jawn
Henry' just east of the Walnut Ave Tower. This brings up a good question:
Did the 'Jawn Henry' ever pull coal down the Virginian?"

This Saturday will be the Roanoke Chapter NRHS Fall Excursion trip to
Abingdon and on to Bristol. Sunday we will travel to Shenandoah and north
for a short "turnaround" for the local riders. If you live near the NS on
the Bristol or Shenandoah lines, wave at us as we go by...

Passed around was the December "Trains" magazine. The inside back cover has
a great shot of NS 2757 pulling a hopper train across the New River near
Narrows, VA.

Thanks to H. Bundy and Delbert Whitlow for their responses about last
week's report concerning the movie "Bull Durham", Maidenform bras being
made in Princeton, and "Little Abner" Glass' comments about his
relationship with crews on coal colliers. Glass, who weighed the coal as it
went into the ships, worked at VGN Sewells Point Pier AND Pier 6 of N&W
after the merger, and is very colorful in his stories which go back and
forth from pier to pier.

Also passed around was a copy of a Virginian Railway Certificate of
Apprenticeship recently sold on ebay. None of the Brethren had ever seen
one but I am sure there are Machinists, Electricians and others out there
who served apprenticeships on the VGN. Please respond if you know of any....

I don't like to repeat rumors, but this one peeked my interest so I passed
it on to the Brethren and now you. Rumor has it that very soon, Norfolk
Southern will unveil a newly painted locomotive #1776 to honor our war
Veterans.......To all of those who have served to protect our freedom,
Thank You.

Then there's this from Bob Cohen: "A couple night ago, I was out for a few
drinks with some friends at the Marriott Hotel and had a few too many beers
and some rather nice red wine. Knowing full well I may have been slightly
over the limit, I did something I've never done before: I took a bus home.
Sure enough I passed a police road block, but as it was a bus, they waved
it past. I arrived home safely without incident, which was a real surprise,
as I have never driven a bus before and am not sure where I got it!

Time to pull the pin on this one!

Departing Now from V248,

Skip Salmon

CDXLV

  __._,_.___
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/attachments/20121108/190cc7db/attachment-0001.html>