ET&WNC in the Gorge
Following the track of the old ET & WNC Rail Road through Doe River Gorge is a fine hike, except in winter. If there’s been some snow or freezing rain, getting across the derelict bridges can be dangerous.
This card was published by the American News Company of New York, but it was printed in Germany before the start of WWI.
I can’t read the place name on the postmark, and I’ve tried. All I can see if the final “…ONE”.
I hope Dolly got home okay, though.
CRR Patch
Actual size is 4″ x 2″. It’s not an iron-on. I found this at the 2019 Antique Bottle and Collectibles sale at the Appalachian Fairgrounds. I always find something at that sale.
Trip Pass
T. D. Moore, Jr. was General Manager from 1968 until, according to Goforth’s Building the Clinchfield, he was dismissed for fraud in 1979.
The pass is 5 x 3.25″ and is blank on the reverse.
Ballast Regulator, Old
This old ballast regulator, devoid of any nameplates or other information (except that its motor was made by Detroit Diesel), sits just east of the former Greenbrier (sic) Dock near Vansant in Buchanan County VA. The Greenbrier facility closed in 2006. I have been unsuccessful in finding out when it was constructed. In early 2000’s, Greenbrier Dock was loading coal from the Lovers Gap mine, just a few miles away.
Rail Gang
Rail Gang MOW unit parked near Glade Spring in early November, 2018. Nobody home.
Snappy Caboose
West Jefferson NC. Built in 1970. Its history is here. It’s equipped with Barber Bettendorf trucks with leaf springs…for a smoother ride.
I don’t know what this gizmo is. A generator of some sort?
Rotary Dump
They’re demolishing Moss #3, but it’s still a photo target-rich area. This is the control room for the rotary dump…TV, microwave, refrigerator. Anything to make the job easier…
This is the dump structure.
Looking through the rotary dump. My buddy standing there for scale.
Mine Railway, Retired
These were all pulled out of a small-scale commercial coal mine in Kentucky, about a mile from Line Fork. We had talked with the owners and were shown the location of the mine, now closed. These rails and mine cars had been used in the mine. The sheep were merely bystanders.
Tazewell VA Train Station
This 1928 structure is slated for renovation. It replaced a wooden station that dated to 1888.
Two Cabooses
When I took these pictures in Appalachia VA, the cabooses were just 2,200 feet from each other, but, boy, are they different. Cast your baby blues on these:
The top one, nattily repainted, is on display in a small park. It was built, according to the ID plate, in 1948. It’s at 36.8998N, 82.78841W
The lower one, rough and ready, was still in the yard. It’s a 1976 unit.
There’s a definitive book on N&W cabooses for sale from the NW Historical Society, but it’s $50.
French Broad River
Well, guess what we found in Corbin KY. The Southern CNO&TP sleeper, French Broad River.
It’s had a rough life since 1950 or so, but it’s now safely, more or less, sitting on a cut section of track to the right of the old depot on, of course, Depot Street. Here’s a look at the end of the car as shown above.
Locomotives and Trains
Not a particularly rare poster (it folds out to a one-sided 22″ x 32″ size) and one that has been slightly damaged on one panel (I’m rather good at finding stuff that is “slightly damaged”) by being in contact with some sort of acidic paper. It features 29 black-and-white photos of Southern history from 1830 (even one of a geezery-looking Nicholas W. Darrell) through the mid 50s. Notice there’s no ZIP Code shown.
So, find yourself one of these and “paste these pictures in your railroad scrapbook”.
Railway Post Office
Even mended with tape (not my doing), this is a fine picture, taken by the American Car and Foundry Company in 1923. Brand new car for Southern Railway.
I would guess that this is the crew that guarded and processed the mail on the car, getting ready to load up. That’s a lot of security!
Railway post offices were mostly gone by 1962 and completely gone by 1977.
Southern Medallion
I found this sign at a flea market mall. It’s 8.75″ in diameter, baked enamel finish and 10.75 ounces in weight. It has been dinged a bit and I’m not under any illusion that it’s an antique. I believe the company that produced these signs is no longer making them. “Too expensive”, I read.
I’m not having any luck finding a similar sign yet. I may have to (alert! 1960s TV series reference) “Wire Paladin, San Francisco”.
N&S Locomotives, Kingsport TN
For as long as I can remember, there have been one or two N&W locomotives and a caboose on a short siding beside Lincoln Street, near the intersection with John B. Dennis in Kingsport. These two are 2559 (EMD GP30) and 7026 (EMD GP50), with the caboose NS 555006. One engine was idling at the time I took this picture. Since this is basically CSX territory, I’ve wondered why these units are here. Still wondering.
Later: Not anymore! Many thanks to Ralph Clark, a former engineer, who clued me in to these locomotives. He recalled that, at some point in the past, Eastman wanted to uncouple from just having one railway servicing their vast facility, so they set up an arrangement with N&S to make a nightly run to Frisco to pick a shipment of coal and bring it back. Pictured above, for all intents and purposes, is N&S’s foot on the ground in CSX territory.
Lynch KY
This repainted locomotive/caboose set is parked in front of Mine #20 in Lynch KY. It was a U.S. Steel unit in use when Lynch was a happenin’ place in the 1940s & 50s: coal, railroad, maybe 10,000 souls in town.
If you’re into taking pix of abandoned industrial towns, this place is target rich. Take care, though, many of the buildings are crumbling.
Building Bridges from our Past to our Future
Calvin Sneed’s first book, with some of the 11,800+ bridge pictures he’s posted to bridgehunter.com, is now available (College Press ISBN: 978-1-5323-4369-8).
Tim Cable and I interviewed Calvin on Thinking Out Loud morning show on AM910 WJCW radio. Truss bridges, mostly, are a passion for Calvin. And he knows his stuff.
N & S 7512
N&S locomotive 7512 slowly coming up the grade across Highway 606 below Exeter VA.
Williamson WV Rail Yard
While Norfolk Western laid down a line through Williamson in 1892 or so, they didn’t build the big consolidation and repair yard until 1901. It has a roundhouse, but I wasn’t able to get a decent picture of it. It shows up quite well on Google Earth, though.
You can also see from the satellite image the fairly wide suspension pedestrian walkway that spans the yard. It is gated, but I was able to climb the rickety stairs that access the northern bridge support tower. This is looking southeast:
This is looking across the yard showing the pedestrian bridge (there’s a date on the building in the center, 1926):
And this is looking northwest or so:
This is the best view I could get of the roundhouse, taken from a 1913 truss bridge over the Tug Fork on the southern side of the yard:
A.A.T.D. Pin
This is a tiny pin, just 1/2″. It’s been around for a while, but I have no way of dating it.
Butterfly pin back, no maker’s mark. Base metal.
CSX Pin
I found this pin at a flea market. Checked a number of sites to try to identify it, but came up empty. It’s well made. It even has a stabilizing pin just below the back pin (takes a butterfly clasp). There are no markings on the back.
Jordan Spreader
This much-used Jordan Spreader, SBD 774760, was sitting in the eastern part of Kingsport yard back in 2012. I thought it might have been used to clear tunnels of ice. That was fanciful. When I looked it up, I found that the unit is used to dig and clear ditches, regulate ballast and even to plow snow. Sturdy and reliable, and, of course, it’s been replaced by more modern things…so it goes.
Northern Ohio & Western #4497
It looks like this unit has been here (37.20723, -81.562866 near Bishop VA) for several years. It wasn’t here in 2012, but was in 2015 (the available Google Earth images). The locomotive is unlocked but hasn’t been terribly vandalized.
Here’s the glamour shot:
Pounding Mill tunnel #3
I forgot this tunnel when I was posting the Pounding Mill tunnels (on the Clinch Valley Main between Pounding Mill and Cedar Bluff VA. This is number 3.
Cmonsters
These were on a couple of boxcars down in Bulls Gap yard:
The second one is longer because I wanted to include the chalked in comment…
Lines of Hoppers
Lines and lines of empty hoppers parked in Southwest Virginia. This is looking more or less southward into Dante Yard. We were moving from Scott County into Dickenson County and back and saw a lot of these idle units. Anecdotal reports indicate that they’ve been there for a considerable time (several weeks or so). We were seeing both CSX and N&S (and some old Southern and Norfolk & Western units, too).
Yeah, It’s Tweetsie
You know I’d post Tweetsie some time or other. So, here goes:
Built in 1957 up near Greer Branch north of Blowing Rock, Tweetsie Railroad is a popular destination (more on that later). This shows old (1917/Baldwin/9-6-0) #12, formerly of the fabled ET&WNC railroad. The card is from the early 60s.
Here’s what it enthusiastically states on the back:
“TWEETSIE’S LOCOMOTIVE #12, CROSSING DEAD HORSE TRESTLE: Tweetsie Railroad; Eastern America’s most exciting travel destination. Full size steam locomotives daily carry fun loving tourists thru three miles of scenic mountains, where trains are attacked by renegade Indians and robbed by outlaws. Authentic western town features live entertainment at Tweetsie Palace, just off the Blue Ridge Parkway at Blowing Rock, North Carolina.”
For the deltiologists:
Color-King Natural Color Cards, W. M. Cline Co., Asheville, N.C. Inventory number 14958A
Photogaphed in Natural Color by Jack W. Bowers (who was, apparently, a quite popular photographer in Asheville)
Found several of these cards in an unlikely little antique/car repair shop near Asheville.
What the…
Blogging the Railroad Tunnels 