Charlotesseville Memories

[daveklepper]

1941-1943 I visited Charlottesseville many times, as my sister Gertrude was married (in 1939) to Leonard Kasle, who was a Reform Rabbi and went into the Navy as a Chaplain in 1944, after a short term as a Reform Rabbi in Charleston, SC.  Leanord was Hillel Director and U. of V., a Professor or lecturer in the Philosophy Dept., and Rabbi of Charlottesseville's then only Jewish congregation.  They lived on Rugby Place. a dead-end gravel side-street, off Rugby Road, a major street with hourly bus service.  My first visit was with my parents, and we took the Southener from Penn Station directly there.  I enjoyed the observation car, but we saved money by brown bagging dinner instead of enjoying the excellent dining car food.   Our arrival was very late at night, with the train approximately on time, with Leanord meeting us at the Union Station, where the Southern (now NS and used by the Amtrak's Crescent) crossed the C&O (CSX or possibly a regional, used by Amtrak's Cardinal).   Returning, I believe we used the Tennesean, and I recall the train arriving late with a PS-4 ahead of the A and B units, so there must have been some sort of diesel malfunction.  I do not recall whether we had to change coaches in Washigton or the coach went through like some of the Pullmans.  I do remember seeing the sleepers as heavywieghts painted silver.  Again, we brown-bagged it.

Many subsequent trips were on my own, at age 10 and more.  A refugee from Germany lived in our basement and one school Spring brake he had to go the State Department in Washington to clear up a matter concerning his visa and to start naturalizaton toward USA citizenship.   I think his name was Dr. Epler.  My parents got the idea of his going with me on the PRR Washington Express and then his seeing me to the Southern train in Washington.   But we agreed on the trip to Washington that I could easily find and board the Southern train myself without his help, which I did, including admiring the PS-4 standing just before the tunnel at the south end of the platform.  On arrival at Union Station, I used a nickle to call my sister and brother-in-law, and was told they could not fetch me, but to take the Rugby Road bus on Main Street, just a staircase away from the station, which I did without any problems.   On this visit I now had both a nephew about six months old (born on my birthday) and a neice about 2-1/2.  The governess, Chassie, used to take them in a two-position stroller to the overpass over the C&O main to the west, and most of the time we would see one train or two pass below.  Mostly passenger trains, and on that trip or later I did conclude that the 4-8-4 Greenbriars were among the best looking steam locomotives I'd seen.  I could not get a reservation on the Tennesean for a return, and I do not remember whether I used one of the C&O or one of the Southern trains to Washington on the return.

Subsequent trips had a different pattern.   My other sister Lillian was married to a Army Air Force flight surgeon stationed near Richmond, and they lived with my recently born niece Carol on Richmond's northside, reachable by the Ginter Park Streetcar line and a conecting Northside Avenue bus.   Ginter Park ran double-truck blue with silver or white trim Birneys, with an occasional older deck-roof orange car during rush hours.  Altrernatively there was the Highland Park line from Hull Street which second-hand two-front-window lightweights from the Eastern Massachusetts Streeet Railway identacle to those that became Boston Elevated's 4400's.   So the pattern developed that I would go first to Charlotteseville, then to Richmond, and then back to NYC.  On the first of these trips I swallowed a cinder leaving Washington because the window (foolishly) was open as we entered the tunnel, and I was eating a cucumber sandwhich.  That was miserable trip, because I upchucked in the john, and have had somewhat of distaste for raw cucumber since.  It was a C&O train, and the C&O had air-conditioned coaches on some trains but not all.  I did admire the C&O Pacifics with all those air-compressors mounted on the smokebox front, an Elasco feedwater heater above, giving a very no-nonsense conquer everything in sight appearance.   On a subsequent C&O train, the conductor allowed me, a coach passenger, to visit the observation car, but not to linger long.  The best of the C&O long-distance coaches were terrific.  6-wheel truck heavyweights, reclining seats, generous spacing, and air-conditioning.

Leonard's parents lived in Detroit, and he would use the C&O to visit them, getting a cut-rate for Pullman travel as a clergyman.  But I always used coach on my trips.

Because of the layover at the C&O station, as trains from Newport News and Washington were combined, I generally used the Union Station only for Southern trains and used the C&O station, further east on Main Street, for C&O trains.   The Rugby Road bus served both stations.  In my spare time I explored Charlotteseville and rode all the public local bus lines. 

The bus to Fry Springs put one in a beautiful park that gave a view of the Southern's main line and I remember seeing 2-8-2's at the head of long freights with lots of refrigerator cars.  I think I remember some FT's in 1943, just before Leonard and Gertrude moved to Charleston.

[coalminer3]

Dave:  Interesting memories and reflections; you might want to consider posting this at the "Our Place" section of the forum as well.

Appreciated your comments on the C&O and their power.  Both stations are still there, of course, (one in use) but the former C&O station has been converted into an office building.  You can still tell what it was, though.  The coal dock is still in place at what used to be the C&O engine facility in Charlottesville - much of the rest of the infrastructure there is either gone or neglected and overgrown.  Buckingham Branch is the regional line that handles 50/51 now.

work safe 

 

[al-in-chgo]

1941-1943 I visited Charlottesseville many times, as my sister Gertrude was married (in 1939) to Leonard Kasle, who was a Reform Rabbi and went into the Navy as a Chaplain in 1944, after a short term as a Reform Rabbi in Charleston, SC.  Leanord was Hillel Director and U. of V., a Professor or lecturer in the Philosophy Dept., and Rabbi of Charlottesseville's then only Jewish congregation.  They lived on Rugby Place. a dead-end gravel side-street, off Rugby Road, a major street with hourly bus service.  My first visit was with my parents, and we took the Southener from Penn Station directly there.  I enjoyed the observation car, but we saved money by brown bagging dinner instead of enjoying the excellent dining car food.   Our arrival was very late at night, with the train approximately on time, with Leanord meeting us at the Union Station, where the Southern (now NS and used by the Amtrak's Crescent) crossed the C&O (CSX or possibly a regional, used by Amtrak's Cardinal).   Returning, I believe we used the Tennesean, and I recall the train arriving late with a PS-4 ahead of the A and B units, so there must have been some sort of diesel malfunction.  I do not recall whether we had to change coaches in Washigton or the coach went through like some of the Pullmans.  I do remember seeing the sleepers as heavywieghts painted silver.  Again, we brown-bagged it.

Many subsequent trips were on my own, at age 10 and more.  A refugee from Germany lived in our basement and one school Spring brake he had to go the State Department in Washington to clear up a matter concerning his visa and to start naturalizaton toward USA citizenship.   I think his name was Dr. Epler.  My parents got the idea of his going with me on the PRR Washington Express and then his seeing me to the Southern train in Washington.   But we agreed on the trip to Washington that I could easily find and board the Southern train myself without his help, which I did, including admiring the PS-4 standing just before the tunnel at the south end of the platform.  On arrival at Union Station, I used a nickle to call my sister and brother-in-law, and was told they could not fetch me, but to take the Rugby Road bus on Main Street, just a staircase away from the station, which I did without any problems.   On this visit I now had both a nephew about six months old (born on my birthday) and a neice about 2-1/2.  The governess, Chassie, used to take them in a two-position stroller to the overpass over the C&O main to the west, and most of the time we would see one train or two pass below.  Mostly passenger trains, and on that trip or later I did conclude that the 4-8-4 Greenbriars were among the best looking steam locomotives I'd seen.  I could not get a reservation on the Tennesean for a return, and I do not remember whether I used one of the C&O or one of the Southern trains to Washington on the return.

Subsequent trips had a different pattern.   My other sister Lillian was married to a Army Air Force flight surgeon stationed near Richmond, and they lived with my recently born niece Carol on Richmond's northside, reachable by the Ginter Park Streetcar line and a conecting Northside Avenue bus.   Ginter Park ran double-truck blue with silver or white trim Birneys, with an occasional older deck-roof orange car during rush hours.  Altrernatively there was the Highland Park line from Hull Street which second-hand two-front-window lightweights from the Eastern Massachusetts Streeet Railway identacle to those that became Boston Elevated's 4400's.   So the pattern developed that I would go first to Charlotteseville, then to Richmond, and then back to NYC.  On the first of these trips I swallowed a cinder leaving Washington because the window (foolishly) was open as we entered the tunnel, and I was eating a cucumber sandwhich.  That was miserable trip, because I upchucked in the john, and have had somewhat of distaste for raw cucumber since.  It was a C&O train, and the C&O had air-conditioned coaches on some trains but not all.  I did admire the C&O Pacifics with all those air-compressors mounted on the smokebox front, an Elasco feedwater heater above, giving a very no-nonsense conquer everything in sight appearance.   On a subsequent C&O train, the conductor allowed me, a coach passenger, to visit the observation car, but not to linger long.  The best of the C&O long-distance coaches were terrific.  6-wheel truck heavyweights, reclining seats, generous spacing, and air-conditioning.

Leonard's parents lived in Detroit, and he would use the C&O to visit them, getting a cut-rate for Pullman travel as a clergyman.  But I always used coach on my trips.

Because of the layover at the C&O station, as trains from Newport News and Washington were combined, I generally used the Union Station only for Southern trains and used the C&O station, further east on Main Street, for C&O trains.   The Rugby Road bus served both stations.  In my spare time I explored Charlotteseville and rode all the public local bus lines. 

The bus to Fry Springs put one in a beautiful park that gave a view of the Southern's main line and I remember seeing 2-8-2's at the head of long freights with lots of refrigerator cars.  I think I remember some FT's in 1943, just before Leonard and Gertrude moved to Charleston.

You really do know your Charlottesville!  Hope you make it there again! 

But, David, I am out-to-lunch when you mention Ginter Street, Highland Park or Fry Springs.  Your profile does not say which metro. area you claim.

Add'l info possible? 

[daveklepper]

Ginter Park (pronounced JJinter), Highland Park, Hull Street, are all Richmond, VA., locations, not Charlotteseville, and I apologize for not making that clear.  Fry Springs is a suburb of Charlotteseville.  In my youth, Richmond still had a marvelous streetcar system, which I could only begin to explore, possibly rode about five of some 25 routes still in operation during WWII.  Clean, well maintained equipment, frequent headways, mostly decent track.   But Charlotteseville had replaced its one streetcar line with a four or five-route bus system probably in the late '20's, but perhaps in the early '30's, and I had time to ride all the bus routes, sometimes with my young niece and nephew and their governess, since bus riding was good baby-sitting.   I had already had my first brush with Jim Crow on a Ginter Park streetcar, since I had not bothered to notice it on the Charlotteseville buses or on the trains.  But then on my next trip in Charlotteseville, I found that the friendly bus drivers knew who Chassie, my niece's and nephew's governess, was.  When the four of us traveled on a local bus we could sit anywhere we wanted.   Of course, Charlotteseville is a University town, and Jim Crow generally was not taken as seriously there as in Richmond (fomer capitol of the Confedericy).

Again, passenger trains west of Charlotteseville generally drew Greenbriar 4-8-4's, while those to Washington and Newport News drew Pacifics.   I don't think I saw anything but 2-8-2's on freights, both railroads, until some A-B-B-A Southern FT sets showed up. 

Dave:   You contacted me re the story about Chuck and I wished to reply.   Unfortunately, the server I am using right now tells me the address is unavailable to me.   This is probably an equipment glich, but if you wish my answer privately, please provide your personal email address and I will reply to you.   My personal email address is [e-mail]

If you are reluctant to give me your personal email address, I can summarize by saying that Chuck's POW experiences and the way he stood up under them may have landed him employment with an agency that values employees who do not make unnecessary acquaintences.   I also wanted to tell you why you should join the American Legion, or if that organization doesn't suite you (and I think it should) then another veterans organization.