CHESAPEAKE, Va. (WAVY) — It’s been a part of the Tidewater skyline for more than 50 years, the bridge spanning the South Branch of the Elizabeth River, carrying the Norfolk Southern Railway between Chesapeake and Portsmouth.

The man currently in charge of opening and closing the bridge has had a career spanning just as long.

In fact, Billy Garris, is the longest-serving active railroader in the Fortune 500 company’s nearly 20,000 person workforce.

“A girl called me a few weeks ago and said, ‘did you know you’re the longest tenured employee on Norfolk Southern?’ And I said, ‘really? I knew I had a lot of time, but I didn’t think I was at the top of the list,'” Garris said during a recent interview from his bridge side office. “And she said, ‘yep, you’re number one.’ So, that was great to hear.”

It was May 15, 1972, when Garris, with the encouragement of his father, took a job as a painter helper with the Norfolk & Western Railroad.

“My father was a machinist, worked the (Lamberts Point) coal pier,” Garris said. “One day he says, ‘you want to go to work for the railroad?’ I said, ‘doing what?’ He said, ‘paint.’ I said, ‘no, no, I don’t like to paint.'”

However, following graduation from Norview High School, Garris was convinced to give it a try. He was laying sheet metal roofs and the railroad offered a raise and benefits.

“I think I made $0.07 more an hour more when I came here. $4.17 an hour was my pay and I was glad to get it because it was a good job,” Garris said.

He would paint for only a few months when a career changing question was asked of him.

“Boss come around one day and asked me, says, ‘you want to be a relief bridge tender?’ And I said, ‘what is that?'”

Soon, he wouldn’t just know the answer, but would take the job full time and eventually write himself into the history books.

For 30 years, he was assigned to the East Branch swing bridge near the old Ford Plant. For the last 21, he has been on the South Branch, also known as the “Old Virginian Railroad Bridge.”

“It was from the Virginian Railroad, Norfolk & Western took that over in the mid 60s, so, that’s why the boats call me the old Virginian,” Garris said.

The vertical lift bridge is 220-feet long and can be raised 135-feet in the air while in the open position. With the push of a button, Garris can have the bridge open and close within seven minutes. He then must set the signals for the trains to proceed.

“My goal out here always, always is to keep everybody happy,” Garris said. “But I haven’t met it sometimes, you know, the trains will fuss a little bit, the boats have a little bit, but I do pretty good. I get them, get them back and forth best I can.”

In the early days, Garris worked with a team of four men, in all types of weather and conditions tending to the bridge. He has vivid memories of hauling coal across the bridge to fuel the potbelly stoves for heat.

He is now the bridge’s only tender, working 7 a.m. – 3 p.m., Monday – Friday.

Often, only one train a day crosses the bridge, usually on its way to drop off freight cars to Americold Logistics or Kempsville Building Materials, according to Garris.

He is truly a one of a kind, as the East Branch, Harbor Park and Gilmerton Norfolk Southern railroad bridges are now all operated remotely.

Garris said, at 74, retirement still doesn’t sound fun to him.

“Some people around here think that I’m the biggest fool we ever met,” Garris laughed. “‘You know you could retire, and you’re not retired’ … It’s not physically demanding, and it’s peaceful. I like peaceful, and so I don’t know of a better job. If it was a better job where I could be happier some kind of way, I would have retired by now.”