A Pole at Tin Bridge on the Saltbville Branch, Six Decades Ago

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Hon. Mr. Herbartius Edwards, Scion of Lynchburg, Sir :

The almost-omniscient Mr. Miller has given fine answer to your questions.

I have only one thing to add: The RS-11 was coupled ahead of the Southern engines that day acct one of the Southern engines was dead.  I was on top of a box car for that photo, and specifically remember taking note to see if both of the Sou engines were running. One of them was not... I think it was the first one.  The Southern ran the daylights out of those engines and I always wondered if they ever got any shop time.  One of them (was it the 2902?) seemed to be on some train or other every day of the week.

41 was always a heavy train, what with its complement of head end cars, RPO and sealed mail. The Bristol Line was a tough piece of work for a passenger train of size, given the grades and curves, and the amount of traffic which was out ahead on the single track.  When you read the fine print in the old employee time tables, you will see that No. 18 was treated as the hot train on the Bristol Line, given its limited number of stops and the number of Pullmans it handled, and often requiring double-heading in steam days.  But if you do the math, even No. 18 only averaged 35 miles an hours over the Bristol Line.  Not a flaming run, by any measure.

BTW, the man running Eng 409 in the photo you inquired about was Charles T. Linkous, of the Christiansburg Linkous family. He was a kind and gentle soul, and very easy-going. At the time this photo was taken, Charlie was right on the cusp as the oldest Fireman on the Division, which meant he got his choice of the Fireman's jobs, but was next to be marked up to Engineman and spend the next five years of his life on Enginemen's Extra Board.  When a passenger train had a Fireman, the Engineman and Fireman swapped sides somewhere on the Division. It was either at Radford or Pulaski that Bristol Line passenger engine crews traded sides, I just can't remember... too many years.

After I got into Ancestry.com a few years ago, I discovered with happiness that Charlie's Linkous' family and my mother's ancestors had been related, up on the mountain at Christiansburg.  A lot of the older families have been up there since the time of the Revolutionary War, so it stands to reason that they would have become intermarried over the decades.

Now, if you have time for a Charlie Linkous story, here is one...  One morning in 1964, I was going west on Time Freight 99.  Charlie Linkous was the Fireman and I think Grady Burrell may have been the Engineman.  (There was nothing "time freight" at all about 99, it was just a "guts and garbage" train:  Norfolk and Roanoke gathered up all their empty cars headed west and hung them on poor old 99.)  So, we were going up East River Mountain and the engine is just a little east of where the Ingleside depot had stood, when the brake goes in emergency.  The Engineman tried to recover the air but was unable to do so, then looked at me and said, "I think it's time for you to start walking, Sonny."  I grabbed a wrench and an air hose and headed out the door, when Charlie Linkous spoke up:  "Ya know, it's about time for No. 4 to be coming.  We might have something spilled over on the Eastbound Track...  Maybe we should grab a red flag, too."  Charlie grabbed the flag and no sooner had we hit
  the ground than No. 4's headlight came around the curve, and Charlie flagged the passenger train.  I walked back and found the train parted behind the 11th car, broken knuckle, nothing fouling the Eastbound.  Back then, there was NOBODY rules oriented on the rairoad, but Charlie Linkous had the good sense to foresee the trap which could have sprung itself on us.

            -- abram burnett
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