The youthful Charles Grover (Cy) Crumley at the Newland, North Carolina Depot. Click on this photo to verify the date.  For the next 30 seconds think about the time period from 1906 through 1960 - the time Cy was employed by the ET&WNC. Cy was about 20 years old when he started with Tweetsie and 74 when he retired (early in his opinion) to look after Edith. Several other guys had 50-year work careers on the ET&WNC. Note that Cy early on was dressed in a style befitting his position as he seemed to be defining it. Below is a list of phone numbers carried in Cy's wallet for ET&WNC employees in the latter part of his career.

This picture was made in 1911 on the Cranberry, NC scale track.  In the cab window is Bill Lewis, and I am not sure who is in the gangway but it may be "Booger" Livingston.  On the ground was Kenneth Jobe, Mr. Crumley, and Bill Sisk. Number 4 was a favorite engine of Mr. Crumley, and pulled the first train he worked on in 1906. This is simply an incredible photo.

	The ET&WNC locomotives were identified by "number plates" which were cast iron or bronze markers showing the number and manufacturer - see example for Engine 12 on the left.

Here is the big yard engine 7 in Johnson City in 1909.  Mr. Crumley had this shot captioned "Conductor Crumley, Engineer John Meredith, Brakemen F. S. Salyer, Carson Salyer." John Meredith was a notable character on the narrow gauge.  He was hot-tempered and fearless to the point of doing crazy things.  He signaled with his whistle for the brakemen to apply the handbrakes coming down the steep hill in Doe River Gorge once.  He looked back to see Brakeman Mack Winters thumb his nose at him from the top of a boxcar and flew into a rage.  He put the air brake valve in full release after seeing Winters do that, and the train went into a free fall down the steep hill, finally stopping on the Hampton Bridge.  He could have wrecked the whole train by doing that, but he was just crazy.  He carried a pistol in his toolbox every day.  He hanged himself in a garage on Maple Street in Johnson City sometime in the late 1930's.