N&W in 1910--Engineer accident

[NW Mailing List]

Asks Chuck Stewart: 


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Abram, 
Did your friend Bill happen to mention when that Class M ran on the Lynchburg & Durham? 
Curious folks in Bahama would like to know. 
Chuck Stewart 
Bahama, NC 
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No, Chuck... no dates. Bill Jennings never put dates to his stories, to the best of my recollection. Engine numbers and engine classes came with every story, but not dates. These are things he told me in the late 1950s. 


One of my favorite Bill Jennings stories concerns one Winter night when he was firing a northward passenger train on the L&D many years ago. The old Engineman called him over as they were moving through a snowstorm and said, "Billy, there's a hant [haunt] on the pilot. Go get him off." Thinking the Engineman was a bit daffy, but yet doing as he was told, Bill went out over the running board to the pilot and found a snow covered and almost stuff drunk, passed-out but sitting up on the pilot beam, with his arms draped over the smoke box braces. They stopped and put him off. "He must have climbed on at one of the station stops," said Old Bill, "but I don't know how in the world the Engineman knew he was out there!" 


Bill had a brother, Hillary, who was also a Norfolk Division Engineman. Bill's reputation was that of a pleasant and likable man. But of Hillary I heard several Conductors remark, "You get on the engine and give him his orders and then get off, because if you stay there more than two minutes, you will be insulted!" 


-- abram burnett 
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