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 a Happy Birthday card for
Harry Bundy.  Harry retired from Norfolk Southern Corp. as a Systems
Engineer.  He is unique because he started his rail career on the original
Norfolk Southern as an Operator at Tidewater Junction and was familiar with
day to day Virginian Railway train movements.  Also Harry was a close
friend of H. Reid and is mentioned in his famous book on page 126.  Now
Harry shares his tremendous bank of rail knowledge with us as an Archiver
at the N&W (and VGN) Historical Society.  He is 78 and monitors trains near
his home in Bonsack, VA.


 For Show and Tell I took the latest "Turntable Times", publication of the
Roanoke Chapter NRHS.  This issue highlights this years 611 Excursions with
many outstanding photos.  Page 14 has a photo of the newest addition to the
Chapter's stable of motive power, an AEP donated EMD SW1000 switcher
locomotive from Glen Lyn.  This issue also has many photos of the brand new
Virginian Passenger Station in Roanoke.


 After our normal banter about the latest storm and current events, the
discussion turned to one of the Brethren's keen sense of fashion.  When
asked what was his secret source of dapper cladding, he answered, "I buy at
the Goodwill".  This prompted Landon Gregory to tell us that this Brother's
wife regularly donates to this worthy charity, and every week our special
friend goes and buys his favorites back from them.  Since, even though he
is 92, this former VGN Fireman is quite a "ladies man", so you might want
to check out the Goodwill, fellows.


 Thanks for the great responses I got from last week's limerick about the
man from Manetta.  This prompted me to think up another one:


 There once was a man from Kumis,
 Who really enjoyed eating humus.
 He lived by the tracks
 That came from Pax,
 And coal was the best bituminous.


 The Jewel from the Past is from March 12, 2009:  "Ruf Wingfield let it
slip that he was 'quite heavy' when he hired on the VGN and his nickname
was 'Fats'.  I also got a shot of Ruf at the very spot in 1945 where he was
issued the famous VGN 19 train order #87 'Make stop and blow your whistle
every hour on the hour for 5 minutes' as told in H. Reid's book on page
103.  He explained getting and giving this train order to the outbound
train near JK.  He said it was about 5:40 PM and he waited until 6 PM before
going home, so he could hear the whistles celebrating the defeat of the
Japanese in WWII."


 Then there's this:  Dave went to the store for a box of mothballs.  His
closet was infested with moths and he needed a solution.  The next day he
returned to buy five more boxes.  "Weren't you just here yesterday to buy a
box of mothballs?" the store clerk asked.  "Yes, but I used up that box
already.  Those suckers are hard to hit when they start moving!".


 Time to pull the pin on this one.


 Departing Now from V248,


 Skip Salmon


 DCXII




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