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

[NW Mailing List]

Last night, on the eve of Thanksgiving this year, I had the pleasure of
"Takin' Twenty" with five of the Brethren and Friends of the Virginian
Railway.  It was great that our oldest member, former VGN engineer Raymond
East could be with us.  He is doing OK with his new Pacemaker and will have
surgery in December.  I asked Raymond a question that Bill McClure sent in
about the painting of VGN boilers something other than black. Raymond
couldn't remember if they were, and commented "I don't recall seeing one
just out of the paint shop and with all the coal dust, the whole front of
the engine looked black to me".  Wis Sowder and Landon Gregory had similar
comments.


For Show and Tell I took two operating manuals given to me by our friend
David Foster for the displays at our Station.  One is from the New York
Central System (Rules for the Government of the Operating Department
 9-26-37) and the other is Rules of the Operating Department
Virginian Railway 6-1-43.  These were issued to New River train crews who
worked with the NYCS from Deepwater to Elmore.  The VGN book had the name
of VGN Engineer A. A. Akers, who is seen in VGN photos in the locomotive
cabs, many times wearing a starched white engineer's cap.


I told the Brethren about our running of the "Candy Cane Express" on
Saturday and Sunday December 5 and 6 at the Virginia Museum of
Transportation in Roanoke.  We will have Santa on board and give rides to
the public from 10A to 5P on Saturday and 1P to 5P on Sunday.  Admission is
$5 and rides are $3.  We will have two cabooses and a passenger coach.
Bring your family and join us!


The ebay report this time has a special VGN  item I have never seen before.
 It is a VGN RWY Safety First Pin with a "safety pin" attachment.  The ones
I know is the originia with a screw type attachment and the ones the N&W
Historical Society gave out at a Convention with a squeeze type attachment
(replica).  This pin sold on ebay for $169.16 (I was sniped).


There was a lot of talk last night about the NS-CP buy-out.  I showed the
Brethren a list of proposed names that "Trains" magazine newsletter put
out.  I had the Brethren vote on their best of the following 11:  North
American Railways (NAR); Canadian Pacific-Norfolk Southern (CP-NS); Canada
Southern (CS); United Dominion (UD); Norfolk and Western (N&W);
International Railway of North America (IRNA); Theroughbred-Beaver (TB):
Atlantic and Pacific (A&P); Canadian-American (CA):  Canada and US (C&A);
and Calgary and Southern (C&S).  The Brethren picked Norfolk and
Western......


We talked about some other facts about the CP-NS deal such as CP has 14,000
employees versus NS with 30,000; the fact they liked was that CP's
operating ratio (what it takes to generate one dollar return) wasn't far
from the VGN at 1959 merger at 59.9 cents compared to NS at 69.7 cents!  I
told them what CP CEO Hunt Harrison said about NS:  " They (NS) have always
been well respected for having wonderful physical plants. Some of us have
teased them about being 'gold plated'".


Let me end this week's report on a special note. Today is a time to be with
family if possible and take some time to reflect on what we have to be
thankful for.  Even though we all have different ideas of what this country
should be doing now and what our leaders are doing, we STILL live in the
greatest place ever conceived this side of Heaven.


Happy Thanksgiving!


Departing Now from V248,


Skip Salmon


DLXXXIII



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