Old Railroad Photographs from the Basement

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Retirement has given me the "luxury" (???) of cleaning out the basement. In that labor, I do run across some treasures every once in a while. Here are some I found yesterday. Commentary will accompany the photographs. 



On Sunday afternoons, the Virginian Ry Round House Foreman at Roanoke used to let me come and play on his engines! Can you imagine that happening today? Judging from the rectangular format, this photo was probably taken with a Brownie 127 camera by Bob Prince, now of Blessed Memory. The 212 was a big Pacific. Yup, that's me in the cab, and the photo was probably taken around 1957. 





I cannot recall where I came upon the next one, an 8x10 photo printed on old N-surface paper, but it is a good one. It shows a passenger trainman on the platform of the old Roanoke station sometime before 1949 (as the passenger concourse bridge at top left was removed in 1949.) I took the photo to my old authority, G(eorge) Arthur Eanes, who was the Radford Division Trainmaster's Chief Clerk, and who had hired in 1922 and "knew everybody." He identified the man as Richard (NMI) "Blondie" Craig, a trainman on the Punkin' Vine (Roanoke to Winston-Salem.) Mr Eanes even told me he hired November 24, 1916, retired November 24, 1959, died about 1972, lived at Rt. 3, Box 558, Roanoke, and was the Conductor on No. 11 and No. 12 before "Barnyard" Davis (who had that run, I think, when it was taken off around 1962.) The print is backstamped "527357," so it's probably a Comp'ny photograph. In this photo Blondie's cap badge reads "Trainman," so he was obviously braking at the time this photo was made. Notice the four hashmarks on his coat sleve... signifying 40 years service. 







Next is an old photograph of No. 26, the Memphis Special, at the Bristol, Va. depot, sometime in the 1920s. When I hired in 1964, I saw this faded old box camera photograph under the desk glass in "BD" Telegraph Office in the Bristol depot. The old lady operator (well, she seemed "old" to me then!) who held the second trick job at BD was named Lilly, and one evening when I was reporting for Time Freight No. 88, I sweet-talked her into letting me borrow the photo in order to copy it. Oh, had we only had scanners and Photoshop back then ! Sorry about the composition of the photo... take that up with the man who made the exposure ! 





Finally come three photos of a tombstone I found in Evergreen Cemetery, Roanoke, when exploring as a kid. Charles Anthony Jacobson was an N&W Radford Division Engineman killed at Melborn, Va, in 1918. He was the youngest promoted man on the Radford Division (something under age 30, as I recall,) and was running Extra 1461 West on the Bristol Line. The 1461 was a big (for that time) Class Z, 2-6-6-2. At Radford, the last open Telegraph Office, his marvelous Conductor overlooked checking the train register and failed to note that No. 26, the eastbound Memphis special, was overdue and running 5 hours and 55 minutes late. Jacobson's train left Radford and met No. 26 head on four miles west of Radford, at Melborn, Va. No. 26 was doubleheaded by two big Mountains, the 102 and the 105. The engines locked together and rolled down the bank, killing four of the engine crewmen. My grandfather obviously knew and worked with all the men involved, which has been my point of contact with the wreck. I knew one man who had been at the wreck site during cleanup, Tom Kegley, a 1906-hire Engineman, and he told me he saw bloody tracks in the snow, left by someone who had escaped death. Anyway, Jacobson's wife, Vanda, had this tombstone erected at his grave. 





That's all for today, folks. I will send high resolution scans to those connected with the N&W Archives. 


--adb
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