another one-legged J story

[NW Mailing List]

Bob

Old men have stories.  Most are true, perhaps a bit faded by time.

Do you have a copy of that article?

Ed and I go back a long way.  He was working on the shop track at 
Shaffers when I was in high school.  Our mutual friend Tom Sink had a 
saying about Ed.  When he knows he knows and when he doesn't know he 
knows.  I think that is like saying he was full of Bull shit.  Old Ed 
still calls me kid.

Story..  Tom got us tickets on the inaugural run of the Cass railroad.  
He got the tickets from John Koloran.  They ran two trains up the 
mountain that day.  The first one held dignitaries like the Governor of 
West VA and others.  We were on the second train.  The tracks had been 
pulled up and we had to stop short of the top of the mountain.  We got 
off and walked the rest of the way to the top.  I got a shot of Ed 
huffing and puffing to the top that day.

a little post script to the story.  Ed and Jim continued life as 
railroad workers.  Tom was an industrial engineer in the textile 
industry.  Not sure but think John K was a news paper reporter. And the 
former governor W.  W. Barron was a taxi cab driver in Chicago. I think 
only Ed and I survive.

Jim

If any other old man wants to make corrections be my guest.

On 5/6/2020 10:40 PM, NW Mailing List wrote:
> Jungle Jim:
>
> That story sounds remarkably similar to one written up in Trains 
> Magazine by Ed King about 25 years ago and described what he called a 
> "one-legged J" and about it running on one-side between Radford and 
> Roanoke at about 60 or 70 mph, and smooth a kitten I seem to recall 
> the story said. The biggest thing they had to be careful about was not 
> stopping on center because then they would have difficulty getting it 
> restarted.
>
> It was a great tale and Ed deserves our thanks for preserving such 
> memories for us to treasure again and again..
>
> Bob Cohen
>
>
>
> Ron
>
> Another story on the 600.? It was on a passenger train headed to Norfolk
> on the race track between Petersburg and Suffolk in the late 50's.? It
> was running at passenger speed (fast) when the guide for the left
> cylinder, firemans side broke.? It took them a mile to get that train
> stopped.? The roundhouse people from Norfolk came out and isolated that
> side of the locomotive and removed any rods necessary and ran it to
> Norfolk under its own power.? I thought sure it would be scrapped at the
> time.? It was sent to Roanoke Shops and repairs made.? The only paint
> applied was the cylinder cover.? I saw it at Shaffers after the repair
> with the shinny cylinder waiting to be called for service.
>
> I think I have a photo after the repair but have been unable to find
> it.? If anyone has the date of this failure or photos of the repair I
> would like to see them.
>
> Jim Blackstock
>
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