"Taking Twenty" with the Virginian Brethren

[NW Mailing List]

Last night I had the pleasure of "Takin' Twenty" with nine of the Brethren 
and Friends of the Virginian Railway. The highlight of the night was the 
video that I took of Rufus Wingfield yesterday in the "Talkin' to the 
Brethren" series where, I intend to make a DVD interview of each of them. 
When the VGN Station/Depot is restored in Roanoke, the plans are to have a 
"media room" where we will show scenes from the VGN and other VGN related 
videos in a continuous flow on a very large flat screen TV. These "Talkin' 
to the Brethren" interviews will be included.

Also I showed some videos taken at various current NS locations on the old 
VGN. The first was a pusher engineer at Whitethorne, MP V288, explaining 
how the pushers are cut off coal trains after they get to Merrimac at MP 
V278. Pusher engineer "Ed" demonstrated how he uses the "shucker" to 
disconnect on the fly. He said that the pusher engine goes into "emergency" 
after the disconnect is made by "bailing down" on the independent brake 
with Actuating air, allowing Main Reservoir air to be put into an air 
cylinder that pulls the pin, opening the coupler. If all goes well, a 
device on the rear coal train car releases a spring, popping a pin, keeping 
the coal train from going into emergency when the cut is made. Ed stated 
that "I hold my breath until I see that coal train disappear..."

Ruf's interview included an on site shot near the Baker Track in South Yard 
where the VGN unloaded autos from their automobile box cars. He answered a 
question posted by one of our readers when he stated that "each box car 
carried 5 or 6 autos". Ruf also let it slip that he was "quite heavy" when 
he hired on the VGN and his nick name 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 that it was about 5:40 
PM and he waited until 6 PM before going home, so he could hear the 
whistles that celebrated the defeat of the Japanese in WWII.

One other video shown was of NS Elmore coal train S10 (second section of 
810)caught at Lee Highway, 13th Street Bridge, Wasena Bridge and when she 
stopped at the old VGN Station. I was "lucky" to observe S10 being 
"bannered" in the 13th Street shot. "Bannering" is when an Operating 
Department supervisor places a banner (large sign saying "STOP, 
Obstruction") across the tracks to simulate an emergency and their need to 
"stop according to the book of rules". S10 complied and continued after the 
stop. Scotty said that he considered a banner more restricting that a "Stop 
and Stay" and treated it like he was about to have a "head on".

I told the Brethren about my visit last Friday to the Open House of the 
brand new Western Virginia Regional Jail at Dixie Caverns. This modern 
facility is located in Roanoke County right beside the old VGN between 
Wabun and Kumis at approximately MP V261.5. I asked the Captain during the 
tour "will there be any jail breaks with prisoners takin' the west bound on 
the VGN?". He never heard of the Virginian...now they know!

Also discussed was a recent NS news release where they stated that NS 
Mechanical employees completed 2008 with a history making Safety 
performance. Their reported injury ration of 0.53 (reported injuries per 
200,000 man-hours worked) was the lowest ever achieved. These 5,800 
Mechanical Department employees are responsible for maintaining 3,976 NS 
locomotives and 94,660 freight cars. In 1958, the last VGN Annual Report 
had absolutely no mention that I could find of a Safety Program, with an 
average of 2,730 total employees with 92 locomotives and 17,143 freight cars.

Landon Gregory showed his video of the Circus Train coming through Roanoke 
on her way to Alabama three weeks ago. He also showed some photos taken 
during last week's snow storm. One good shot showed him putting food into a 
bird feeder, with several squirrels waiting with "baited breath".

Time to pull the pin on this one!

Departing Now from V248,

Skip Salmon



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