ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, November 10, 1996 TAG: 9611110043
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
Contributors to the Virginia Museum of Transportation's campaign to raise money for its renovation and building project include the very wealthy - and those less so.
But they all share a passion for the railroad. Its rich history and gritty machines - particularly the old steam locomotives - have the power to evoke a childhood memory or make one yearn for a long-gone era of passenger transport.
Rail buffs revel in it.
So they give, in ways that reflect who they are and how they've come to love the railroad.
* * *
Ronald Dixon grew up in McDowell County, W.Va., a mining community on the old Norfolk and Western Railway's main line.
NW's Class J steam locomotives - then brand-new - would rumble through once a day, puffing and chugging as they hauled passenger cars.
Dixon was hooked.
"I am what they call a rail fan," he said.
Dixon, now of Valdosta, Ga., tried to get a job with NW after a 20-year stint in the Air Force. But the skills he'd honed in the military didn't quite suit the rail industry. He took a job instead at South Georgia Medical Center, where he's worked for 25 years.
Still, Dixon's fondness for trains runs deep.
He has taken several steam locomotive excursions over the years - one with his wife and several with his son, who works in the Atlanta office of Norfolk Southern, the corporation formed out of the merger of NW and Southern Railway.
Aside from churning up boyhood memories, the excursions gave Dixon a chance to get together with people who "admire the beauty and strength of those engines, like I do," he said.
Last year, Dixon came across an ad in Trains magazine. The Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke was seeking donations to "Protect an Old Friend." It was a fund-raising campaign to build a shelter for the now-retired ClassJ No.611 steam engine, parked in back of the museum.
Dixon wrote a check in the amount of $6.11. He wrote another, for the same amount, a month later. And another. And another.
The shelter was completed a year ago. Dixon hasn't stopped sending the $6.11 checks. They arrive in the museum's mail, like clockwork, about the 15th of every month.
"My original intent was to send a check in until the shelter was paid for," Dixon said. "But as long as I can afford to, it'll be coming, probably until I die.
"I'm just glad the engine number wasn't something like 178.90."
* * *
David Stephenson has been into trains since he was old enough to stand without clutching the side of a chair.
Stephenson grew up in York, Pa., near a hub of train activity. During World War II, he and his father would take a trolley to the train station in nearby Lancaster to visit his father's victory garden. The garden was within walking distance of the station.
"I remember the station more than the victory garden," said Stephenson, now of Herndon. "We'd go down on the platform, and it was very busy. Trains were running every few minutes. That's when I got interested in trains.
"And it got worse from there."
Stephenson has a collection of model train engines, all built from kits. At last count, he had 67.
He is an engineer with the federal Surface Transportation Board in Washington, successor to the Interstate Commerce Commission. His rail knowledge helped him get the job, he said.
He visits the Virginia Museum of Transportation in Roanoke twice a year - once in the spring and again in late summer. He comes to marvel at the locomotives, particularly one numbered 611.
Stephenson, a life member, gave $600 toward the museum's $2 million renovation and building project to "try to put my money where my mouth is."
But the true testimony of Stephenson's love of the locomotive is on his Chrysler Concorde.
Its license plate is "J611.''
* * *
The request was kind of odd - a special inscription on the plaque that hangs in the museum's lobby with the names of those who have contributed $500 or more to the museum's fund-raising campaign. That inscription? "Train Brain. It is Genetic."
Edward Johansen Jr. of Annandale requested it when he sent the last installment of his $500 donation a year ago.
Johansen's paternal grandfather was a ticket agent with the old Pennsylvania Railroad.
"Maybe I inherited some of his genes," Johansen said. "I think it's just one of those things. It just coursed through my blood, the love of trains. Just that mechanical movement of things."
Johansen enjoyed the mighty steam locomotives. He'd been on several excursions with his son, who inherited his father's love of trains. Johansen had dreamed of taking his two grandsons on an excursion - but Norfolk Southern discontinued its steam excursion program before he had the chance.
No matter. Johansen is certain that the older of the two, who is 6, has inherited the "train brain."
The boy cried not long ago when his mother wouldn't stop what she was doing to watch some trains go by, Johansen said. But the sure sign that to this child, trains are to be treasured, is in his large collection of toys.
"He's got a lot of toys, but his trains are sacred," Johansen said. "He doesn't run them hard. He doesn't like wrecks.
"He takes special care of them."
* * *
Not all donations to the Virginia Museum of Transportation are the hefty kind with more than one zero.
Some are small amounts. They carry, perhaps, sentiment a little more touching than do the larger contributions.
Take Charlie and Billy Petty of Blacksburg - 8 and 6 years old, respectively.
The brothers made paper airplanes and fans last fall and sold them - lemonade-stand style - in front of their house. It was a hot day, apparently with a slight breeze - a perfect day for selling paper airplanes for soaring and fans for cooling off.
They sold the items for a penny apiece. They made about $4.50, Charlie said. (Some were purchased above the market price, according to their mother.)
They gave a portion of their profits to the transportation museum.
To understand why, rewind to 1993. The boys and their parents - Mark and Peyton Petty - were living in Boston. Mark Petty was offered a corporate relocation to the Roanoke area.
The family was having reservations about the move.
"I did not want to leave Boston's historical, cultural and educational opportunities," Peyton Petty wrote in a letter to the museum staff. "What could a small town such as Roanoke offer in the way of 'culture'?
"A lot, it turned out. The transportation museum is one of the few places you can happily go with young, energetic children. Most important, it grabs our imagination and pulls us into the history of our country. These days, it's nice to show the children something truly American and truly glorious."
The museum helped sell the Pettys on the Roanoke area. They decided to make the move.
At least four times a year since, Peyton Petty has piled the boys and a few of their friends into the car and driven from Blacksburg to the transportation museum in Roanoke.
"I like how you can touch stuff," Charlie Petty said. "The 611 is my favorite train."
Billy agreed. "I like the 611 the best, because it's the biggest and the blackest," he said. "I also like the red stripe on it."
The brothers donated $5 to the museum - part of it money made selling the paper airplanes and fans, and part of it the portion of their allowance that they routinely set aside for charitable causes.
Charlie was particularly concerned that the museum pieces stored outdoors be under shelter. If they are out in the open, they might rust, he said.
And "if all the trains get destroyed, it's not going to be very fun."
LENGTH: Long : 147 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: GENE DALTON/Staff. Charlie (left) and Billy Petty raisedby CNBa little money for the museum and also gave part of their
allowances. color.