Green Cove

[NW Mailing List]

I don’t know, Abe.

McNew kept a rather senior fireman for a long time before he retired.  If he was that much of an sOB I don’t know why a senior fireman would have stayed on the job.  And a real SOB wouldn’t have let me ride the 429 with him from West Jefferson to White Top with him on one fine day.  (Read “Twelve Wheels and a Scoop Shovel” in a long-ago issue of TRAINS Magazine.

And they didn’t work on a car limit on the Branch.  They worked on tonnage.  The M was rated for 325 tons from Taylor’s Valley to White Top and the two passenger cars probably accounted for 60 or 65 tons of that.

I was riding the train when he stalled above Taylor’s Valley one day, but it wasn’t tonnage.  He had an extra fireman who wasn’t cutting if.  Firemen who complained about his first-week treatment enjoyed their second week even less.

You may have forgotten that the whole crew – all senior men – figured they were due back in Bristol when they left Abingeon going south.  Joe knew full well that doing that required a fireman to work the whole day, going over N&W’s highest elevation twice.  Then, on the return trip, they had the two summits of wyndale Hill to cope with while trying to stay ahead of 45.  If Joe wore out his fireman, the whole ball game was lost.

I rather imagine that all that negative attitude toward McNew stemmed from personality more than any actual train-handling difficulties.  But like I said, McNew was always nice to me, and he didn’t have to be.

- Ed King

From: NW Mailing List 
Sent: Friday, October 04, 2019 4:24 PM
To: N&W Mailing List 
Subject: Re: Green Cove

Joe B. McNew must have been a real sweetheart of a person to work with.



When I hired in 1964, the Firemen were still cussing him, the rakemen were still cussing him, and even the Conductors were still cussing him !



Was looking for my 1930-something seniority roster book to get dates for McNew and Fitz, but I cannot find it right now.  I think Fitz may have been around for just a few months after I hired.



One story I recall was told to me by Trainman Jack Bentley.  He was working the head end with McNew on the Abingdon Branch and the train had one more car than they usually hauled.  The whole crew knew that McNew as going to stall.  And he did.  And he instructed Jack to go back and cut behind so-many cars.  Jack went back around the curve, fiddled around for a few minutes, never made the cut, and walked back to the engine and gave McNew a highball.  McNew walked the train right away without a cinch.  But as soon as they came to a right-hand curve and  McNew looked back and saw that he had the entire train plus that one extra car he did not like, he suddenly could not handle the train and stalled again !



-- abram burnett

..............glad it's over





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