Cambria
Oral History ProjectWe are collecting stories about Cambria to create an oral history of a small town that, for nearly a century, was the heart of Montgomery County. If you have stories you would like to share, new or old, please write (or email) Meghan Dorsett, Dorsett Publications LLC, 630 Depot Street NE, Christiansburg, Virginia, 24073. We will add your story to the collection. (mhd)
Darcy Rogers
My name is Darcey Rogers, and I currently live in Plantation, FL. During the winter of 1966, I was a student at Virginia Tech (We called it VPI then) and a Junior in the Corp of Cadets (“O” Squadron). I have a story to tell about an experience involving the old Cambria Train Station. During one very cold January week that year a fellow cadet and I decided to “hitchhike” to Virginia Beach over the weekend and return in his car that he planned to pickup at his parents’ home.
We set out late that Friday afternoon on foot and found several rides up to Appomattox, Va. We should have paid more attention to the weather forecast for that weekend. Our last ride dropped us off at an open gas station in Appomattox. It was now dark out with the temperature falling quickly and snow starting to come down very hard. That meant no cars on the road and no rides for us. We didn’t know what to do. I do remember that the gas station was open only because the owner couldn’t get home in the snow and was stuck there…it was that bad already. He let us know that the N&W train station was only a short distance away, and that the train from Cincinnati (the Powhattan Arrow) to Norfolk would pass through about 9pm. He knew because it came by the gas station every night…but it never stopped!
We walked to the station through the snow anyhow. There was no one at the station and only a hand-marked chalk board on the back wall indicated that the train would pass through at 9pm. I still remember that time (or was it 10pm?). The gas station owner was correct and the train was not scheduled to stop. We were freezing and had nowhere to go, and had to try something. In our youthful ignorance we decided to try and “flag down the train”. No Kidding! At about 9pm we stepped down beside the tracks, and with one of us on each side, waited. If I remember correctly, we didn’t wait long. A good thing too, considering how cold it was getting. By then it was most likely in the mid 20’s, and we didn’t have all that much on to keep warm.
We saw the train light and heard the whistle. I lit my Zippo lighter and my friend waived a white handkerchief. We both were jumping up and down as the train flew past going (what seems like now) about 60/70 MPH. I do remember the train Engineer looking down through his window, right at me, as he passed. Just about as fast, we head the train put on its breaks and start coming to a halt well past the station. That wonderful Engineer stopped the train and proceeded to back it up into the station. We got up on the platform and the conductor opened a door to let us on. We both paid what cash we had to the conductor and he gave us a ride to Norfolk. My friend called his father, who picked us up.
If nothing else that would have been a great story, but there is more and it next involves the station in Cambria. We had the bad luck of setting out on the weekend of the “Great Blizzard of ‘66”. At least that’s what we called it. Now we were stuck in Va. Beach, because the weather reports that Saturday said all the roads in the Virginia piedmont area and west were closed. So we weren’t going to be taking his car back after all. We had classes Monday morning, and had to do something. So we took the train back. I remember my friend’s dad purchased a ticket for us both.
We stopped at the Richmond, VA, station. I’m not sure, but I believe we changed trains there as well. I do remember we picked up quite a few Tech students in Richmond, along with girls returning to Radford College. It’s been too long for me to remember exactly how many students were on the train, but it seems like it must have been about 20 to 30. It was here at the Richmond station that we also found out that Va. Tech had canceled all classes on Monday, the next day. We could have stayed in Va. Beach another day…but we didn’t know.
That Friday night and the following Saturday it had snowed several feet in the area around Blacksburg and Radford. I seemed to remember someone saying 42” of show fell that weekend, but that could be in error. Still, it was a LOT! It was also very cold in Cambria when the train dropped us all off at the Station there. All 20 to 30 of us piled into that small wooden structure on one of the coldest Sunday nights I can ever remember. It was still open and there was an attendant there. We were all glad, because the temperature that night dropped down into the low teens, with several feet of snow covering all the roads in sight. The Radford girls had planned to pick up a train in Cambria and take it over to Radford, but that ride was “snowed in” somewhere up North in New England. So they were stuck there as well.
Now that station was, and still isn’t, very big. I recall we did our best to rest that night. Some slept between Coke machines to stay a bit more warm. All the benches and practically all the floor space was used to sleep on. It was packed! Still…we had a great time together. We all shared what we could to stay warm and to make the best of it. I’ll never forget that night in Cambria. Sometime Monday morning a “rotorary snowplow”, with a number of Taxi’s from Blacksburg following behind, got to the station. We all had a ride back to campus. What a weekend it had been, and we still had to go back to Va. Beach to get my friend’s car some other time.
I wish I had taken my camera that weekend. I took a number of pictures around the Tech campus that Monday. No classes! There were “big bumps” in the snow around the area where I figured the Drill Field should be. Those bumps were cars buried in snow, where the owners had left them that previous Friday night. In some places snow had drifted up to the second story windows against dorms located on the Upper Quad. All in all, it was quite a trip. Darcey Rogers, October 2008 Plantation, Florida
CHRISTIANSBURG (CAMBRIA) DEPOT
THE CAMBRIA TOY
STATION MUSEUM
SHOP
CAMBRIA, 1913
HISTORIC PRESERVATION... WHY BOTHER?
THE SCALE CABINETMAKER AND DORSETT
PUBLICATIONS
CAMBRIA &ENVIRONS
Letters from the Past - your letters, full of memories of old Cambria
