"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. What a surprise! The Brethren 
presented me with an "official Virginian Railway Happy Birthday Cake" and a 
VGN Birdhouse, as well as a great card, signed by all. I became a member of 
the Senior Citizen Club on Tuesday and the Brethren helped me celebrate my 
65th birthday last night. Still I am the "young whippersnapper" of the 
group. I have posted a photo of the "official VGN Birthday Cake" on this 
site under "Skip's Photos" #51. If you can not open it, email me at 
gkholine at cox.net and I will send the photo.

I passed on to the Brethren the good news that 100 miners were called back 
to work at Pinnacle Mining at Pineville, WV recently. Tom Marshall says 
that the mine produces metallurgical coal used in steel production. 
Pineville is on the 3rd Sub-Division of the Guyandot River Branch (Elmore 
to Gilbert), 386.5 miles from Norfolk in the Virginian New River Timetables.

There is only one item to report this time from ebay: A Virginian Railway 
Police gold Lieutenant's badge was sold for $360.08. Does anyone out there 
know anything about this badge or to whom it might have been issued? It has 
the West Virginia Seal on it.

Tuesday I was doing some follow-up for my video series, and met Kendal 
Johnson, NS carpenter working on the high trestle over the Roanoke River 
east of the Yateman's Viaduct. Seems that the cross tie people supplied NS 
some non-oak ties that did not last on the bridge and the gang was 
replacing them. Mr. Johnson told me that his grandfather, James H. Johnson, 
was an engineer on the old Virginian. James was given the Harriman award 
and $1,000 in 1913 for rescuing a baby from the tracks. Kendal is a 
railroad pin collector but did not have a VGN "Safety First" pin so I gave 
him one. He promised to bring his grandfather's Harriman award and "take 
twenty" with the Brethren some Wednesday night.

Passed around were the latest "Trains" magazine and July-August "NS BIZ". 
The September "Trains" had almost no mention of Norfolk Southern and the 
"NS BIZ" is almost entirely about NS winning the twentieth Harriman Award 
for Safety. Also passed was a photo I got of NS 9587 and an eastbound coal 
train coming off the Yateman's Viaduct with several insulators from the 
Virginian Railway electric locomotive period still attached to the bridge.

Ruf Wingfield told the Brethren about always using a #3 VGN pencil (with no 
eraser) for car reports. These report forms required five copies, so there 
were four carbon papers used and a very hard lead pencil. Ruf said that 
"VGN Clerk Wallace Brinkley would use the carbon papers over and over until 
you could read a newspaper through them". Ruf also shared some of his 
"ugly" tomatoes with us. My wife Judi says that Rufus produces the "ugliest 
but best tomatoes that she ever tasted".

Our resident golfer, Yard Engineer William "Scotty" Scott told us about 
"really hitting the links" this week. He normally shoots in the low 80s but 
yesterday when he shot a 97 in Blacksburg, he said that he "played goof 
instead of golf".

Time to pull the pin on this one!

Departing Now from V248,

Skip Salmon



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