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

[NW Mailing List]

Last night, the last Wednesday of winter this year, I was able to "Take
Twenty" with five of the Brethren and Friends of the Virginian Railway.  We
discussed the fact that the two circus trains are about to be retired.
Landon said he did not recall either traveling on the VGN but as Dispatcher
after the merger, he worked them several times on the N&W.  We all had
memories of watching crews unload the elephants and seeing many youngsters
and oldsters follow the caravan from the train station to the civic
center.  Speaking of the circus trains, several former N&W cars are
included (Duke, Pike County, and one other) and the local chapter of the
NRHS is especially interested in  the Pike County.  More on this later.
One of the Brethren commented that the "circus is too tame for today's
audiences" compared to what is on TV and in the movies.


For Show and Tell I took the first quarter 2017 Roanoke Chapter NRHS
"Turntable Times" for the Brethren to peruse.  The cover has Abe Burnett
III's 9/28/65 photo of N&W's first #51 coming off the Winston-Salem line
into Roanoke with EMD GP-9 #769 on the lead.  Speaking of motive power, I
have a VGN Heritage unit #1069 color photo for the first person who
responds with the correct answer to the following question:  What piece of
former Virginian Railway equipment was powered by EMD?


Last week I was able to help one of our Friends of the Virginian, Steve
Summers by getting him a copy of a VGN drawing at the N&W (and VGN)
Historical Society Archives of the freight staton at Tams.


The Jewel from the Past is from August 13, 2009:  "One of the "Takin'
Twenty" readers I met was George Weber, editor of "The Rail", the
outstanding newsletter of the Winstobn-Salem Chapter NRHS.  He recently
followed a train from the old Southern on to the New Connecton at Hurt, VA
and on to Roanoke.  He asked me to check with the Brethren about two
questions:  1.  Back in the days of the VGN and SOU, what types of loads
would the VGN or SOU run between Greensboro and Roanoke?  2.  Did each have
trackage rights on the other"  Rufus Wingfield, Yardmaster at Roanoke and
Raymond East, VGN Engineer who grew up in nearby Altavista, answered
George's questions.  Ruf said " there was no sharing of trackage rights".
Raymond remembered the Southern had a diesel locomotive assigned to Hurt
for transfers to the VGN.  Wis Sowder, VGN Clerk, who worked at Altavista
remembered that the SOU diesel "ran all night".  They all spoke of SOU
Conductor Frank Ingram who was in charge of the transfers.  Frank had an
accident and worked with only one arm.  The Brethren remembered there were
many coal hoppers (mostly empty) transferred as well as cedar chest from
the Lane Factory in Altavista and Wis recalled some tank cars were
transfered frof SOU to VGN for Lane Furniture.  Of course there were also
many box cars containing various freight shipped on to Roanoke."


Then there's this:  A man and woman had been married for more that 55 years
 and they shared everything. They had kept no secrets from each other,
except that the woman had a shoe box in the top of her closet that she had
cautioned her husband never to open or ask her about.  For all of these
years, he had never thought about the box, but one day the woman got very
sick and the doctor said she would not recover.  In trying to sort out
their affairs, the old man took down the shoe box and took it to his wife's
bedside.  She agreed it was time he should know what was in the box.  When
he opened  it, he found two crocheted dolls and a stack of money totaling
$85,000.  He asked her about the contents.  "When we were to be married,"
she said, "my grandmother told me the secret of a happy marriage was to
never argue.  She told me that if I ever got angry with you, I should just
keep quiet and crochet a doll."  The man was so moved; he had to fight back
tears.  Only two precious dolls were in the box.  She had only been angry
with him two times in all those years of living and loving.  "Honey" he
said "that explains the dolls, but what about all of this money?  Where did
it come from?"  "Oh," she said "That's the money I made from selling the
dolls."


Time to pull the pin on this one.


Departing Now from V248,


Skip Salmon


DXLIII

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