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

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Last night I had the pleasure of "Takin' Twenty" with five of the Brethren
and Friends of the Virginian Railway. Landon Gregory and I told the
Brethren about the Lynchburg to Petersburg "Cavalier" trains that we served
as Car Hosts last weekend.  Landon told of meeting an old Engineer he knew
when he was Dispatcher at Crewe, VA.  The gentleman's son, who was also on
the train, is now an NS Engineer.  I told of completing part of one of my
"bucket list" items having my oldest son Scott and his wife Sharon on my
car "St. Augustine" WATX 500, riding behind the most beautiful steam engine
ever built.  I hope to complete the "bucket list" item on the fourth of
July when my two other sons, Josh and Stephen are scheduled to ride with me
behind the 611.  We were welcomed in Petersburg by a group of Civil War
re-enactors who fired off an old cannon in salute to our arrival both days.


 We are going to have a photo shoot in July of as many of the Virginian
Brethren who can make it to the restaurant, to show you the current faces
of those in this report.


 The Jewel from the past is from August 28, 2008:  "Rufus Wingfield
remembered when the VGN decided to 'downsize' before the merger and 'take
out half of the roundhouse' in Roanoke.  However, 'the contractor removed
the wrong half, the east portion when they were suppose to remove the west
portion, to facilitate a west-bound hump'.  Of course the rest is
history..."


 For Show and Tell, Dr. Davis brought Spring 2015 "C&O Historical
Magazine".  Page 28 has the second part of a very large article
"Unpleasantness on the Western Virginia Central".  This in depth article
tells of how the nine railroads within Virginia handled the war.  South of
Richmond they were 5 foot gauge and the other four were 4' 8-1/2 ".  Page
30 has a map of the Confederate rail lines including a "Roanoke Valley"
short line out of Keysville, southeast of Lynchburg.  If you get a chance
to read this, I highly recommend it!


 I also showed the Brethren a couple "Mercer Memories" columns out of the
"Princeton Times" sent to me by George Harman, former NS conductor on the
Princeton Turn and husband of Betty Harman, "Slick" Inge's niece.  "Slick"
lived with the Harmans just before he passed away and George graciously
stored and has gotten to me many VGN artifacts left by "Slick" for the VGN
Station displays in Roanoke.  The Jeff Harvey column "History of the
Tidewater Railway in the early 1900s" mentions VGN timetable No.1 showing
passenger service instituted between Deepwater and Roanoke at midnight May
23, 1909 with trains 13 and 14, and through passenger service for the
entire length of the line between Deepwater and Norfolk July 1, 1909. The
other article "A look at the Deepwater Railway Company" tells of
"construction work between 1903 and 1907  on the 59 miles remaining to the
Virginia border.  The excavation work on that portion of the VGN was by far
the heaviest piece of construction work on the entire system, with 64%
compared to 31% through Virginia of almost solid rock.  Between Deepwater
and Rock, the excavation work was largely done by hand labor, mules and
carts, with the tunnel excavation being hauled away by dump cars drawn by
mules. Upwards of 50 steam-shovels, 1,200 dump cars and 124 locomotives
were used in the cuts and tunnels and 10,000 laborers were employed at the
peak of construction."


 Hope to see some of you riding the 611 excursions out of Roanoke (to
Lynchburg in morning and Walton in afternoon) the fourth of July weekend.


 Then there's this:  "Normal after all"...(1) I'm going to retire and live
off of my savings.  Not sure what I'll do the second week. (2) Even duct
tape can't fix stupid...but it can muffle the sound.  (3) Why do I have to
press one for English when you're just gonna' transfer me to someone I
can't understand anyway?...  and the Brethren's favorite (4) The kids text
me "plz" which is shorter than "please".  I text back "no" which is shorter
than "yes".


 Time to pull the pin on this one!


 Departing Now from V248,


 Skip Salmon


 DLXIII
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