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<DIV>Harry,</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Even though you state that freight service on the Shenandoah Division
resumed on August 29, 1969, some nine days after hurricane Camille, it's my
recollection that the detour of Southern passenger trains did not begin until
September 5, possibly because of the backlog of freight traffic, including
Southern freight trains detoured around the washed-out Tye River bridge.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>At any rate, when we heard that Southern passenger trains would be detoured
over the Shenandoah Division, Roanoke to Riverton, Bruce Sterzing (later
president of the D&H RR) and I decided to take advantage of the
endorsement on our N&W passes reading, "Good on engines and freight
trains," by riding the engine cab on what I recall was the first of the Southern
passengers trains on the detour, train No. 18, engines 4188, 4144, 6132 of
September 5. Also, in the cab was a Southern road foreman of engines and
N&W Safety Department representative, the late John Rehor who wrote the
impressive book, "The Nickel Plate Story."</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I had my camera along and took about fifty pictures from the cab, mostly of
the flood damage along the way. This flood in this land of steep mountains
and ridges was quite different from the typical mid-west floods where the water
spreads out over relatively flat plains and the worse current is largely along
the ordinary channel. With Camille in Virginia the unprecedented
deluge ran off the steep slopes in torrents to the valley floor where the
torrents combined into very swift and powerful currents that scoured the
complete width of the valley in some cases. I wish I could show some of
the pictures that I took of such devastation, such as the foundation of
house where seven occupants died (Camille resulted in 152 died or missing in
Virginia), but I only had time to scan and attach four low-resolution images
from the slides showing some railroad damage.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Slide 164-18 shows the south end of the restored passing siding at Loch
Laird with a work train on the C&O connection to Lexington in the left
distance (the C&O had trackage over the N&W Glasgow -- Loch Laird.
With names like these there must have been a lot of Scots settlers in this
area.).</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Slide 174-21 shows fill repair along South River north of Buena
Vista. I heard that the N&W paid $22,000 for a $6,000 farm in order to
have a source of fill dirt for repairs somewhere.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Slide 165-14 shows damaged rip rap and signal case south of Midvale.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Slide 165-21 shows some of the derailed cars of the train trapped in the
floor north of Midvale as Harry related.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The Southern road foreman invited Bruce and me to ride over the
Southern from Riverton to Manassas with him, but fate was to deny
this. We were stopped north (compass) of Stanley by a red signal.
Walking forward (the Southern engine did not have an N&W radio) we found
that a "double-barrel" coal train, i.e., one with a pusher, had buckled the
100th car and the emergency stop jackknifed the 37th, 38th and 39th cars.
Using a wayside telephone, our crew got instructions to return to Waynesboro so
the detoured train could further detour over the C&O. We backed up to
Stanley siding where the engines ran around to the south end of the train
for the trip back south. The controls were switched to the opposite
end of the engine consist, and we all climbed into that cab. We
picked up speed and a little later the N&W engineer called out
excitedly, "I don't have any brakes! We're starting down the mountain
and I don't have any brakes." Sure enough he had placed the 24RL automatic
brake valve in full service position but the train was picking
up speed on the four mile, one-percent-plus grade. At that point the
Southern road foreman reached over and threw the handle into emergency position
(the "big hole"), and the train came to a stop. Inspection revealed that
the automatic brake valve on that end of the consist was defective, so the
Southern road foreman took over from the N&W engineer, explaining that he
was familiar with applying the brakes by cautiously nudging the brake valve
handle over the hump between full service and emergency until the "big hole"
would bleed off just enough air to apply the brakes without going into
emergency. That's how we got back into Shenandoah where Bruce and I
got off to catch a freight train back to Roanoke. We wondered how late the
passengers were getting to Washington after having to detour off the
detour.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Harry, thanks for awaking some old memories.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Gordon Hamilton</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="FONT: 10pt arial; BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=nw-mailing-list@nwhs.org href="mailto:nw-mailing-list@nwhs.org">NW
Mailing List</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=nw-mailing-list@nwhs.org
href="mailto:nw-mailing-list@nwhs.org">nw-mailing-list@nwhs.org</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, August 19, 2009 9:29
AM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Midvale - August 19, 1969
A.D.</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>
<DIV><BR><BR><BR>Forty years ago, Hurricane Camille began saturating
Virginia. A Shenandoah</DIV>
<DIV>Div. crew near Midvale encountered water over the track and
stopped. The</DIV>
<DIV>South River was rising. When contacting the rear end crew to
back to</DIV>
<DIV>higher ground, they advised that water had also risen above the
tracks.</DIV>
<DIV>The crew was rescued by helicopter. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>At 2:30 AM (20th), the Maury River rose above the N&W tracks and
flooded</DIV>
<DIV>downtown Glasgow. Nearby Nelson County received 27" of rain in
about</DIV>
<DIV>3 hours. Nelson County received more rain, but Rockingham County
had</DIV>
<DIV>more flood damage. Southern Railway's No. 47 facing strong
rains stopped</DIV>
<DIV>south of Charlottesville. A good thing - the double tracked
Tye River bridge</DIV>
<DIV>had been washed away. Photos in local papers the 21st showed
four</DIV>
<DIV>strands of rail stretching across the Tye River valley without
support.</DIV>
<DIV>Wonder if Southern's signals displayed CLEAR.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Following the flood, N&W helicoptered Asst. Gen. Manager Bill Dod
and</DIV>
<DIV>N&W's bridge "magician" - Henry Dearing, to survey the
damage. The</DIV>
<DIV>helicopter flew 20 stranded victims to safety. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>In all, N&W's Shenandoah Division was flood-damaged in nine different
places,</DIV>
<DIV>including the double track bridge north of Pkin. By August 29,
N&W had</DIV>
<DIV>made sufficient repairs to begin service. Nos. 17-18-,41 and 42
were rerouted</DIV>
<DIV>up the Shenandoah Div. to Waynesboro, then to Charlottesville. </DIV>
<DIV>
Harry Bundy </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV id=u8CBEEE844CAFDBC-156C-2A9A_EN_US class=aol_ad_footer></DIV>
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