"Takin Twenty" with the Virginian Brethren by Skip Salmon

[NW Mailing List]

 Last night I had the pleasure of "Takin' Twenty" with seven of the
Brethren and Friends of the Virginian Railway.  I told them about a visit I
made Tuesday with an old friend of mine who lives between Stewartsville and
Goodview, VA.  He is a retired supervisor from NS and has an outstanding
woodworking shop on his property and does custom framing.  I had seen him
at the retired supervisor's breakfast last week and he told me he had some
of the NS posters of the Heritage units posing on the turntable at Spencer
framed with barn wood.  My youngest son is quite fond of photographing the
Heritage units, when they are in town, and his birthday was yesterday so I
went for a visit and purchased him one of the framed posters.  My
friend has more, so if you are interested in one, contact me off line.  He
also showed me some Virginian artifacts he has collected over the years,
living beside our beloved fallen flag.  He indicated he would donate some
to the Station when it is finished.  He showed me a well used  wooden
mallet with a short handle, like a hatchet, with VGN. RY. on it.  Anybody
out there know what it may have been used to do?  He also showed me a VGN
heart shaped lock he purchased "from a boy about 1959" for about $8.  One
very interesting item was a sheet of 3 cent US postage stamps with "VRY"
punched out with little holes. (I have seen similar with NW punched out and
was told these were for company mail and punched so employees would not use
them).  The most unusual rail artifcat he has is a V&T RR brass heart
shaped switch lock...



The Brethren talked some about taxes, since Tuesday was the deadline to
file.  Most of it was about the "good ole days when taxes were not as much
as today's".  A couple of the guys are thinking about getting their
concealed carry permit for a hand gun.  During the discussion, a friend of
mine Ed Noel, who was dining nearby come over and told us he has handouts
explaining the Virginia law about concealed carry, and he will bring them
for the Brethren next week.



For Show and Tell I took Wayne McKinney's new book "Roanoke Locomotive
Shops and the Norfolk & Western Railroad".  Several of the Brethren perused
it and most felt there was about 50 years left out between steam locomotive
manufacture and today.  Of course since I worked there for about 30 years,
they all looked for my picture...(My 30 was during the 50 left out).




>From last week, thanks for the reply from our good Friend of the Virginian

Railway Bill Honeycutt.  He explained that he was involved in building the
models of the locomotive and car shop for the 1968 N&W Board Member's
visit.  He has a photo of Walter Grigg (one of the VGN Brethren who has
passed on), Manager Motive Power Locomotive at the time, with Bill and the
model.  If he can find it, I will try to get the photo on this site.



The Jewel from the Past is from November 8, 2007:  "Cornbread had to bring
his dog with him and left her in his van with it running, and the lights on
while he was in Country Cookin'.  He seemed preoccupied and when someone
mentioned Sir Aurthor Cannon Doyle, creator of the famous Sherlock Holmes
stories, he responded as follows: 'I've heard of 'Sherlock Homes';  I think
they are building them in a subdivision over near Boones Mill'"



Time to pull the pin on this one!



Departing Now from V248,



Skip Salmon



DXIII





__._,_.___
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/attachments/20140417/8897c452/attachment.htm>