Jube Jerrell Covered Up Race Horse Smith With Coal

[NW Mailing List]

This reminds me of a story I heard while working for the N&W during Race 
Horse Smith 's presidential tenure, apocryphal or not, it seems to have 
some likely factual basis.

Much earlier when he was newly appointed Superintendent, Shenandoah 
Division {as I recall the story}, he took an early morning walk for 
which he was famous (he was said to be long-legged, hence his nickname, 
also based on his first two initials) and he ended up at a small rural 
station that had a cold waiting room .  The agent had never seen this 
newly appointed superintendent so when Smith told him that he need to 
build a fire in the waiting room stove, the agent pointed to a stack of 
telegrams and told the stranger that he did not have time to build a 
fire because he had to send all of these damn telegrams, so Smith wrote 
out a telegram and handed it to the agent.  Smith's telegram read 
something like this, "Relieve agent [station name] immediately account 
dereliction of duty.  Signed: R. H. Smith, Superintendent.

The agent took one look at this telegram and told Smith, "I can't send 
this telegram."

Smith said, "Why not?"

The agent replied,  "Because I have to build a fire in that damn stove.

Gordon Hamilton

On 10/3/2021 9:15 PM, NW Mailing List wrote:
> Years ago there circulated a story about Race Horse Smith, when when 
> was Superintendent of the Radford Division, getting covered up by coal 
> in a wreck at Groseclose, on the Bristol Line.  (This was no doubt 
> when he was Superintendent of the Radford Division.)
> According to the story, he was riding the engine of an eastbound 
> passenger train, with Engineman Jubal A. ("Jube") Jerrell.  For some 
> reason the engine upset on the reverse curves at Groseclose, and Race 
> Horse got covered up by coal which came forward out of the tender.  
> Every time I heard the story, the verb describing what happened to the 
> engine was "turned over."
> Does anyone have any specific information about this wreck?
>     -- abram burnett
> Three-Phase AC Turnips
>
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