Fwd: [VirginianRailwayEnthusiasts] "Takin' Twenty with the Virginian Brethren"

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--
Skip Salmon

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To: VirginianRailwayEnthusiasts at yahoogroups.com
From: "Charles E. Salmon, Jr." <gkholine at cox.net>
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2008 11:13:52 -0000
Subject: [VirginianRailwayEnthusiasts] "Takin' Twenty with the Virginian Brethren"

Last night I had the pleasure of "Takin' Twenty" with ten of the
Brethren and Friends of the Virginian Railway. We signed a Happy
Birthday card for Wes Sowder, VGN clerk, who will turn 82 today.

I passed around a news article found at the work session of N&W
(and VGN) Historical Society this month. It was dated January 17,
1938 and read "For the first time in the history of the coal
business, a solid train of 100 railroad cars carrying approximately
5,000 tons of coal briquets will travel from Glen Rogers to Toledo,
O. for ultimate distribution to customers in Michigan cities". These
briquets of coal were made by the Old Ben Coal Corporation from
pulerized coal from the Beckley Seam at the Glen Rogers Mine. The
VGN took the train to Gilbert and turned it over to the N&W who
routed it to Columbus for the C&O to pull to Toledo. This train
contained enough for 700 families to heat their homes for the whole
winter. Ironically, the train passed through Williamson where the
famous 1967 N&W 500 car record coal train passed. This N&W train had
25 original Virginian coal hoppers.

Also passed was the April 18 "Roanoke Times" "Your Best Shot" a
photo that I submitted taken in March showing light units from VGN
South Yard passing the new $600,000 Art Museum in Roanoke. This is
the photo that railpictures.net rejected for "extreme angles below
the subject". The Brethren got a kick out the the fact that
the "extreme angles" rejection made the Times "Best shot".

Frank Breedlove, VGN brakeman, told a story about a VGN box car
being lost and rerouted and then found on a siding in the late 1950s
that when opened carred a cargo of 1949 Ford Sedans.

I passed around the January/February "Turntable Times",
newsletter of the Roanoke Chapter NRHS. This issue has a tribute I
wrote to our dearly departed Russell "Slick" Inge. When Frank
Breedlove read it, he told the group how Slick hired him in 1955.
Frank had just been released by the US Army and was visiting his
family in Victory. He needed a job so his brother told him to go see
Slick the next morning. When Slick saw him in uniform and was asked
about work, he asked Frank if he preferred Norfolk or Roanoke. Frank
said that he didn't especially like Norfolk, so he
answered "Roanoke". Seems that the next week was when the VGN was
changing over from 6 day a week to a five day a week work schedule
and gave Frank a "dead head slip" to ride one of the last #3 trains
to Roanoke and the start of his rail career.

The Brethren liked my photo of the work on the Virginian Room at
the Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke. The theme for the
room is "Virginian, Roanoke's Other Railroad". It is scheduled to
open sometime in May.

Bob Rowland is planting his garden and got a load of "top
soil". Seems that it had a lot of "top rocks" as well. Bob said
that when he got through culling out the rocks, every neighbor on his
block had rocks in their trash cans. He plans to meet the trash
truck with "tips for the workers" when it arrives.

I think I'll pull the pin on this one.

Departing Now,

Skip Salmon

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