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

[NW Mailing List]

Last night, on the 48th anniversary of my wedding with Judi, I had the
pleasure of "Takin' Twenty" with seven of the Brethren and Friends of the
Virginian Railway. My bride and I did our celebrating earlier in the day.
She supports the Brethren and my efforts to remember our fallen flag even
"gave me a gift of being able to be with the Brethren on this special day".


>From last week, we talked more about "ordinaries" and two more came out.

Landon Gregory remembered one between Burkeville and Amelia called
"Jennings Ordinary" and "Polly's Ordinary" near the Peaks of Otter in
Bedford County.

I have posted three new photos on this site under "Skip's Photos" of
Virginian Railway items. All three belong to Anne and H.B. Bryant of
Sedley, VA. They are Friends of the Virginian Railway who support all of
our efforts to remember the line. I passed around photos sent to me by Anne
with her permission. The first is a letter opener that matches the paper
clip posted last week. This one has the same VGN logo as the paper clip
with "Serving New River and Pocahontas Coal Fields" on it. The Bryants told
me that this item and the paper clip were given to customers of the VGN as
a gift. The second is a VGN Zippo-type cigarette lighter with "Coal Traffic
Department" and the third is a Virginian Railway ash tray with "Fast
Freight Service" on it. None of the Brethren remember seeing any of these
items. Glen McLain said "they sure didn't give them to the employees" and
went on to comment that all he ever got from the VGN "was a well deserved
pay check".

The Jewel from the Past is from August 17, 2006: "I showed a map dated
March 1, 1960 of South Yard showing several changes that N&W proposed after
the merger. This provoked memories of the old Yard office, stock pens and
structures in the yard. Jimmy Whittaker remembered Yard Master Rudolph
'Snoot' Willet. He recalled that 'Snoot' (big nose)would worry when the
yard was full and trains were approaching from the west. 'Ruf' Wingfield
remembered 'Snoot ' sometimes forgot that the car measurements for the
tracks were in 40 foot lengths and had to double the tracks when he
miscalculated the length of trains."

Passed around for the Brethren to peruse was the January 2013 "The Rail",
newsletter of the Winston Salem, NC Chapter NRHS, George Weber editor.
George asked my permission and used our 2013 "Friends of the Virginian
Railway" calendar as his cover for this issue. Thanks George for allowing
us to be a part of your colorful newsletter and the coverage of our
activities in the Roanoke area and support of the VGN.

The discussion last night covered VGN agents and how important they were to
the activities of the areas they served. Landon Gregory served as relief at
many VGN stations for agents who were on vacation and was able to even earn
extra money for looking after some of the enterprises there. These included
less that car load deliveries, pulp wood sales and other services to local
businesses along the line.

Then there's this one: An Italian tourist asks a blond man: "Why do Scuba
divers always fall backwards off their boats?" To which the blonde man
replies: "If they fell forward, they'd still be in the boat."

Time to pull the pin on this one.

Departing Now from V248,

Skip Salmon

CDLIV

 __._,_.___
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/attachments/20130117/f9003b4c/attachment.html>