"Takin' Twenty" with the Virginian Brethren by Skip Salmon

[NW Mailing List]

Last night I had the pleasure of "Takin' Twenty with eight of the 
Brethren and Friends of the Virginian Railway. Landon Gregory told the 
Brethren about dispatcher Charlie Miller taking the west bound this 
week. Landon said that Charlie was the type of guy who kept everyone in 
the office in a good mood and enjoyed playing practical jokes. The 
standard procedure was to keep a blank CT-114 train order form in the 
typewriter so when an order needed to be taken, it could be typed up 
quickly. Landon relieved Charlie one night and after typing the first 
line of an order he saw "dummy can't you see this message has been used 
already"? I showed the Brethren a "snippet" from last Monday's "The 
Roanoke Times from 100 years ago today": "Both the Norfolk & Western and 
Virginian railroads have been installing a telephone system on their 
lines and it looks as if eventually this method of handling trains will 
largely, if not altogether supersede telegraph."

The ebay report this week includes the sale of a Virginian Railway 
spittoon for $385.00. I appreciate the feedback last week from Steve 
Smith concerning the VGN lantern that sold for $374.00 with "VIRGINIAN" 
on the tall globe, that I dubbed "bargain of the week", but did NOT read 
the fine print. Steve notified ebay and the buyer about this lantern 
that had no other VGN markings and the globe was a reproduction like one 
that he had purchased before. This is a lesson from the old "if it seems 
too good to be true, it just might not be" school. So, beware and 
investigate before purchasing VGN artifacts that may be fakes...

The Jewel from the Past is like one in George Washington Inge's ("Slick" 
Inge's father who was a trainman on VGN #3 very early) Illinois is from 
November 18, 2004: "Russell 'Slick' Inge told the story of a crew on a 
west bound, 'Froggy' Williams, Jack Ellis and Tom Elswich who had a meet 
at Kumis. While they were waiting, they took advantage of a crop of 
sweet corn near the track and 'helped themselves to several ears' (Slick 
later said it was several Piggly Wiggly bags full). Upon arriving at 
Princeton, they got a red board. Superintendent Berkley Mills personally 
greeted them with 'you can pay the man for his corn or go home and look 
for another job'".

Passed around was the July "Trains" with articles about the "world's 
largest Yard", UP's Berkley Yard in North Platte, Nebraska and a Fred 
Frailey editorial "Does a bleak future await the coal-hauling 
railroads?". Fred states that "new Federal regulations on coal- burning 
power plants will reduce their need for coal by 30%. NS stands to lose 
more than $500 million in revenue". I hope this Fred is wrong but who 
would have "thunk" cabooses would be replaced by another "Fred"?

I brought several photos purchased last week of Virginian locos, steam 
and diesel. One showed a brand new Trainmaster sporting number "808" 
(last three numbers in her serial number) while being tested on the 
Milwaukee Road before delivery to VGN. Jeff Sanders brought a nice 
framed photo of a VGN H-3A, 1913 built, 55 ton hopper with "war-time" 
markings including a "Buy Bonds" logo.

I told the Brethren about the recent discussion on this site about "coal 
crappers or croppers". Wis Sowder and Glen McLain told us that even 
though their job title was "call boy" they did coal "cropping" every 
winter. The call boys were responsible for "releasing" enough lump coal 
every day for the stove in the yard office. None of the Brethren ever 
heard the term "coal cropper or crapper".

Our Joke man Glen McLain brought this story: A man boarded an airplane 
in New Orleans, with a box of soft-shell crabs. A female crew member 
took the box and promised to put it in the crew's refrigerator for the 
flight. Shortly before landing in New York, she announced to the entire 
cabin, "Would the gentleman who gave me the crabs in New Orleans, please 
raise your hand?". Not one hand went up...so she took them home and ate 
them herself!

Time to pull the pin on this one!

Departing Now from V248,

Skip Salmon

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