(The following column by John Blankenship appeared on the West Virginia Record website on July 18. Brother E.B. Lilly is a retired member of BLET Division 101 in Hinton, W.Va.)
BECKLEY, W.Va. — It took more than 25 tons of coal and 30,000 gallons of water to power a big steam locomotive from Handley, near Montgomery, to Hinton in the 1940s and early ’50s.
“When they took the steam engine off the line, they took everything away from railroading,” explained E.B. Lilly, 81, of Daniels.
Lilly got the nickname “East Bound” from the crusty old railroaders of his generation. He spent 41 years on the railroad, working as a fireman when the 118-foot steam locomotives of the Hinton Division — including Raleigh, Thurmond, Qunnimont and Gauley Bridge — were derailed in favor of the quieter, cleaner diesel engines in the early 1950s.
But the retired engineer’s heart still lingers in the era of steam-driven trains. His memory of working the old coal-burning locomotive is still clear as a whistle. “Running that old iron thing is something I’ll never forget,” he said. “There’s something about railroading and its people. It becomes part of your life and you enjoy every part of it.”
Suddenly, Lilly checked his 23-jewell Elgin pocket watch as if to make sure he isn’t late for his afternoon run. For a few short seconds, he seems transported to an earlier time, a time among clouds of white steam and black coal smoke and the howl of steam whistles. His green eyes fix on one particular old story.
“We’d hit the mountain hard going up to Clifton Forge from Hinton,” Lilly recalled of his early runs on the CSX line, known in earlier decades as Chessie System and C&O Railroad along what was then called the Allegheny Mountain subdivision.
“On a hard pull, the stoker sent a stream of coal into the fire box as big as your leg,” he said. “The engine popped and cracked, belching out a pillar of smoke from the stack. It was a pretty sound, it was a beautiful sight.”
Starting out as a fireman in 1946, Lilly was promoted to engineer in 1955. He is often lauded by brakemen and other railroad crewmen for his skill at handling trains.
“He could take 100 cars 200 miles and never spill the coffee out of your cup in the caboose,” recalled one former brakeman on the old C&O line. “He had such a steady hand with the engine that you could hardly tell if you were moving.”
Lilly may have had the respect of his peers when it came to running trains, but he got the scare of his life in the late 1940s on a steam locomotive headed to Clifton Forge across one of the Allegheny Mountains which straddles the border between the two Virginias.
A few miles out of Hinton, the engine’s steam got dangerously low in the boiler.
“I was firing for an old engineer by the name of Tim Taylor on the Allegheny run when the engine stalled on its way up on the mountain; it couldn’t go, and alarm went up and stayed up for a long time.
“I figured she was going to blow for sure, and I didn’t want to be on her when she did. So I got off and met the brakeman coming around the back of the engine; he told me, ‘I’m going, too.’
“But then the engineer turned on the pump to feed water to the boiler, and I heard the alarm go down. So I went and climbed back on the engine.”
Lilly was promoted to Road Foreman/Assistant Train Master in 1969, when he assumed the duties of an official in supervisory capacity.
Though Lilly spent 41 years on the railroad, he said he never got tired of his job until it came time to retire. “It wasn’t railroading anymore,” he said, “especially when the railroad officials closed down some of the local terminals and moved us out several miles down the track. Then, after we’d pull a 12-hour shift, they’d send a taxi out to pick us up. It wasn’t for me.”
Most of the engineers, firemen and conductors on the old steam trains are gone now, but many area residents who grew up in that era still remember the days of steam when numerous trains arrived and departed daily from local depots and rail yards.
Lilly, meanwhile, likes to reminisce about his life’s work on the railroad and pay tribute to the men who labored on the former C&O line.
One of his fondest memories from his years of railroading is firing the boilers of the old steam locomotives and sharing the camaraderie of those who worked on the ribbons of steel. “I liked the men I worked with and I enjoyed the challenges that the railroad job presented,” he said. “I met a lot of good people and we got along well together.”