"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. The talk of the night was about
Norfolk Southern shutting down part of its big classification yard at
Shaffers Crossing, and furloughing over 140 employees in Roanoke. The
larger trains now will be classified in Chattanooga and other yards, and
Roanoke will become mostly a "run-through" location on the operating
system. This prompted a lot of different comments by the Brethren. Frank
Breedlove said "I never thought I'd see the day this would happen". Wis
Sowder and Glen McLain remembered when they were Clerks and actually worked
in this yard classifying cars. Wis said he walked all 54 tracks from Park
Street (5th Street) to the Hump (24th Street)in all kinds of weather.

During the yard closing discussion, Landon remembered the Slusher brothers,
all four became Yardmasters on the VGN and N&W. All seemed to like Jimmy,
"Hootie", and Harry, but most had other things to say about "Duck Butt".
Wis recalled someone talking about him once and asking "is he dead yet? If
he ain't, he ought to be!" This somehow lead to a discussion about "houses
of ill repute" located by the VGN RWY in the eastern part of our Old
Dominion. One of the Brethren, not to be named, worked as a teenager at a
gas station nearby one of these locations. He said every weekend, several
of the "ladies" would bring their yellow Packard convertibles by, to get
gas and have him wash the Packards. You can imagine what else was said
about this operation.....

I passed on to the Brethren that famous artist P. Buckley Moss is going to
do a painting of the Virginian Station in Roanoke for a PBM Convention, to
be held later this year. This painting will become a part of her famous
collection and we have asked for print #1 to be given to the Roanoke
Chapter NRHS for display. Prints will be sold as a fund raiser for the
Restoration Project. Incidentally we recently received a sketch from the
artist, for our comments and was asked if we had a suggestion for something
to be put in the foreground. Our suggestion was to add the now famous
Virginian Rose bush, that still survives on the property. More on this
later.

Passed around was the Jan/Feb 2013 BIZ/NS for the Brethren to peruse. This
one features how planning paid off for NS in the recent Hurricane Sandy
"Frankenstorm". The Brethren's favorite was the article about several NS
employees receiving the "Ergo Cup" award for good ideas they had to improve
working conditions or operations on their jobs. Another favorite was page
22 "NS Spring Street property stars in 'Hollywood South'" where NS property
in Atlanta has been used recently in several movies. Glen Mclain commented
that the BIZ/NS is a "far cry" from the old "N&W Magazine" but he
remembered nothing similar on the VGN.

Thanks to Virginia Museum of Transportation for inviting the Brethren to a
Volunteer Appreciation Dinner later this month in appreciation for their
participation in the activities at the museum last year. Also VMT has had a
very good response to the "Fire up the 611" campaign. More on this later
also.

The ebay report this time includes the following VGN RWY items being sold:
Slide of EL-2B #126 at Princeton June 1958 for $49.99; 1948 Timetable #21
Norfolk Division for $35.00; Lot of 35 N&W and 15 VGN photos $750.00;
Article Tidewater-Deepwater RR 1907 for $27.50 and a photo at Bud for
$24.50.

The Jewel from the Past is from October 26, 2006: "Cornbread told us at his
Family Reunion this week in Tennessee, one of his relatives, who works for
a big government agency, told of using a new multimillion dollar piece of
equipment that can measure distances in outer space to incredible
accuracies. He said she told him they have determined that without a doubt,
the distance from the earth to the moon is exactly the same as the distance
from the moon to the earth...

Time to pull the pin on this one!

Departing Now from V248,

Skip Salmon

CDLXI

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