N&W in 1909--Rail buckle

[NW Mailing List]

That reminds me of a story my granddad, Virginian engineer W.R. (Bill) 
Bloyd told me about an incident that happened in his first year as a Virginian 
fireman. He told me that in the summer of 1924 (one of the hottest on record) 
he was firing on an eastbound work extra out of Victoria. He said that 
several miles west of Kenbridge, the train hit a place where the rails had 
buckled outward from the heat, causing the engine and train to crunch down on the 
ties. He said the engineer panicked and jumped off, leaving Granddad and 
the head-end brakeman on the engine. Granddad said they got the train stopped 
and climbed down to survey the damage, and saw the engineer climbing back up 
the enbankment as the conductor came charging up from the caboose. He said 
the conductor grabbed the engineer by the front of his overalls, shook him 
and yelled "You SOB, it's no wonder the Germans were so hard to whip, they 
must have had cowards like you fightin' em".

Greg Harrod


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