March 2 1980
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
By Garret Mathews
Daily Telegraph Staff Writer
Photos by Wade Spees

Bluefield, Va. - The fox had gotten too close to the railroad tracks. Its fangs were bared - the beast was combat-ready even at the bitter end - but a portion of the head was missing, undoubtedly deposited a little further up the track.

"Must've happened overnight," the white-haired man of the tracks said as his feet stroked the animal's fur, "'cause it sure wasn't here yesterday."

G.R. Nash would know about things like dead foxes by the railroad right-of-way. It is also natural he would know where the best strawberry patches are between here and Norfolk Va., and, for that matter, between here and Cincinnati, Ohio.

You see, the 81-year-old Nash rode these and other area rails for 44 years. For most of that time he was in charge of the baggage car, handling suitcases, trunks and even a crate full of rattlesnakes to be delivered to a carnival.

But when the train was moving Nash just watched. Watching was enough. He could smell the strawberries and the groundhogs. He could feel the locomotive-pierced air on his cheeks and he could feel the train give a bit when it passed over low joints in the track.

Low joints are old-fashioned, Nash says. Just as old-fashioned as a man who still likes to wear dark overalls and walk where he used to ride. It's almost as if Nash stalks the tracks when he walks. Oh, he might look over at the Bluestone River on the one side of the embankment or look at the traffic on the other side but for the most part the 81-year-old Nash keeps his eyes straight ahead.

"I walk these rails for the exercise mostly but I do it for memories, too," he said as he walked with measured step over the wooden girders. "I had a mighty lot of trips on the railroad, you know."

Trips, for example, like the black night he hauled a half-dozen rattlesnakes over these same tracks to a carnival deep in the Virginia coalfields.

"I kept a good watch on those snakes for two reasons. One, I was in charge of 'em and two, I wanted to know exactly where they were all the time."

"I'll never forget what happened when I finally dropped 'em off," he went on. "These carnival ladies grabbed those snakes like they were long-lost relatives and put 'em around their necks like beads."

Nash walked past the dead fox and past the car wash. "I started out on the railroad just like a bunch of other kids - I loved it and I was curious. We lived on a farm and I had my own little miniature railroad that even had homemade hills and low spots. I don't reckon it surprised anybody when I signed up."

Nash's first job was cleaning the headlamps on the old steam locomotives. "I had it better than most of the other grease monks, though. It wasn't too long before I moved up to the baggage car."

Nash ambled over a small trestle. He lit up a Chesterfield and talked about his early career. "I was hit real hard by the Panic of 1929. There were four extra men on the Norfolk run and they cut everybody off but me. Still, I had to work a lot on the farm to make ends meet. Even had to work a little around a coal mine."

"But I can't complain about having to hustle like that. It was all because I didn't get my education. I know now that the seventh grade isn't enough but I didn't know then."

Nash retains a keen memory about train numbers and schedules. For example, he can recall every stop on the 11-hour trip to Norfolk. Additionally, he can remember the afternoon his train killed four young people in Big Stone Gap, Va.

"The baggage car was right behind the engine so we were always the first to get to an accident. There wasn't much we could do about those kids, though. They were knocked hundreds of yards up the track."

"We ran over a lot of cows, too, and I always felt bad about that," he continued. "I knew we could be taking the milk right out of some child's mouth."

Nash occasionally shifted from one track to another, depending on the smoothness of the footing. Now he was walking on the older of the two tracks. "This one here - the one with the low joints - hasn't changed since I first started on the railroad. These joints are why the train goes clickety-click, you know. It's because the train is sagging at this joints." He looked at the other track. "That one is a silent type. No low joints. It hasn't changed much either except they put new steel in about 20 years ago."

Nash cannot say the railroad life didn't have its shortcomings. "For one thing, those baggage cars were never warm enough on winter days. And for another, we worked holidays, Sundays, funeral days - you name it. We could have a letter perfect run to say Norfolk and dang if we wouldn't have to turn around and do the exact same thing the next day. But that's the transportation business for you."

Nash finished his track walk just a few yards from his home. The daily exercise was enough to make him rub his arthritic knee but that was all. No reason why he couldn't take the same walk the next day.

"Now I myself would take the train if I had to travel but most other folks wouldn't," he said has he kicked a few loose gravels off the track. "I reckon I look at things a little different."

G.R. Nash stretched his legs one final time. He said he has no regrets about spending 44 years of his life on the rails. Unless, that is, he could have taken a few more days off to pick strawberries.