Scott Jessee

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Scott Jessee

Scott Jessee has been a wonderful friend and ‘researcher extraordinaire’ during the development of this website. His interests include both the Charleston Cincinnati & Chicago (3Cs) and the Clinchfield Railroads.

Scott Jessee’s Clinchfield and CSX Career

Scott started as a clerk at Dante VA for Clinchfield Railroad in March 1980. By 1983 he was an extra board Erwin Dispatcher. Other stops along his 36 year career for the Clinchfield include:

  • Yardmaster at Dante
  • Supervisior of Train Operations at Erwin for CSX
  • The coal department and operations center in Huntington WV, 2003-2016 

‘Trains’ Article on CSX Operations

Scott is an integral part of the excellent article by Ron Flanary in the October 2001 issue of Trains magazine about the CSX operations on the old Clinchfield Line.

‘Adventure of our Lifetimes’ as told by Ron Flanary

Scott Jessee - CSX - Clinchfield Railroad - Challenger - Photo by Ron Flanary

“Here’s an image that will win no awards, but it captures the sheer drama of being in the cab of a giant steam locomotive at speed. The fellow on the left is Scott Jessee, who was CSX’s trainmaster at Kingsport at the time. He was at the epicenter of this whole operation (as well as Santa Trains before and after). He and I have been friends for many years, and the stories we might be able to tell between us could fill a book.

(Photo courtesy of Ron Flanary)

Scott is an excellent researcher and has flushed out much information on the earlier operations of what eventually became the Clinchfield. He retired several years ago after a railroad career that started in 1980 as a clerk with the Clinchfield in Dante, Va. Scott knows more about how to efficiently move heavy traffic over a busy single track railroad through the mountains than any known computer program could handle.

At this location somewhere between Miller Yard and Starnes, Va. on a very rainy Sunday, November 22, 1992, some of the pressure of this epic operation had lifted from his shoulders. He was on the jump seat behind UP fireman Lynn Nystrom, one of ten UP employees, along with then-steam boss Steve Lee in charge of the operation and maintenance of the Challenger. Lynn was keeping an eye on some aspect of the big 4-6-6-4’s steaming performance. Scott, at last, was in his own world of feeling the wind in his face as this ultimate dream unfolded before his eyes in real time. What were the odds he and I would be in the cab of a 4-6-6-4 on the Clinchfield in 1992? I wonder what he was thinking. We both knew this was an adventure of our lifetimes.”

Clinchfield and 3Cs Historian

Even though Scott is humble, he is a key Clinchfield and CC&C historian. He prefers to say ‘avid and interested.’

He and James Goforth were close friends. With Ken Marsh, the three of them have hiked across Clinchfield country searching for relic roadbed of the CC&C.

Jitterbug Contributor

If you are a member of the Carolina Clinchfield Historical Society, you will see many articles by Scott in the organization’s magazine, the ‘Jitterbug.’ https://nrhs.com/chapters/north-carolina/carolina-clinchfield/ . He has also been providing CRR/CC&O/S&W documents and maps to the Archives of Appalachia at East Tennessee State University.

Retirement

Scott is now retired and playing golf in AL, but still enjoys keeping the history of the Clinchfield & 3Cs alive. You will even find him out hiking and 4-wheeling little known segments of the old 3Cs roadbed.

For More Information – Sources and Resources

The following are excellent resources for those of you wanting to explore and learn more about the history and operation of the Appalachian Railroads. These sources of information also serve as reference and historical materials for Appalachian-Railroads.org. Much of the collective railroad history data points on this website are verified across multiple sources.

  • Personal Maps & Memorabilia: Documents, maps, timetables, and track charts
  • Associations, Historical Societies and their Archives
  • Archives of Appalachia: ETSU, Johnson City TN
  • Newspaper Articles: Newspapers.com
  • Magazines/Online: ‘Trains‘, ‘Classic Trains‘
  • Books
    • Drury: The Historical Guide to North American Railroads
    • Appalachian Region
      • Grant: ‘The Louisville, Cincinnati & Charleston Rail Road’
      • Graybeal: ‘The Railroads of Johnson City
      • Huddleston: ‘Appalachian Crossings – The Pocahontas Roads‘ and ‘Appalachian Conquest‘
      • Poole: ‘A History of Railroading in Western North Carolina‘
      • Timko and Young: ‘Appalchian Coal Mines and Railroads, Vol. 1, 2, & 3‘
      • Roberts: ‘Sand Patch, Clash of the Titans‘
      • Yanosey: ‘Tidewater Triangle’
    • Atlantic Coast Line Railroad
      • Calloway: ‘Atlantic Coast Line, The Diesel Years‘
      • Griffin: ‘Atlantic Coast Line, The Standard Railroad of the South‘
      • Goolsby: ‘Atlantic Coast Line Passenger Service, The Postwar Years‘
    • Baltimore & Ohio Railway
      • Jacobs: ‘The History of the Baltimore & Ohio’
      • McGuirk: ‘Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in the Potomac Valley‘
      • Ori, Salamon and Oroszi: Baltimore & Ohio/Reflections of the Capitol Dome‘ and ‘Baltimore & Ohio/Sunburst Trail to Chicago’
    • C&O Railway/Chessie System
      • Dixon: ‘Chesapeake & Ohio, Superpower to Diesels‘, Chesapeake & Ohio in the Coalfields, ‘C&O Allegheny Subdivision‘, and ‘Chesapeake & Ohio Railway – A Concise History and Fact Book‘, and ‘The Chessie Era’
      • Dorin: ‘The Chesapeake & Ohio Railway’
      • Huddleston: ‘Riding the New River Train‘
      • Ori – ‘Chessie System‘
      • Paton: ‘Allegheny with an A’
      • Turner: ‘Chessie’s Road‘
    • Clinchfield Railroad
      • Beach: ‘The Black Mountain Railway’
      • Goforth: ‘Building the Clinchfield‘ and ‘When Steam Ran the Clinchfield‘
      • Helm: ‘The Clinchfield Railroad in the Coal Fields‘
      • Irwin & Stahl: ‘The Last Empire Builder: The Life of George L. Carter‘
      • King: ‘Clinchfield Country‘
      • Marsh: ‘Clinchfield in Color‘
      • Poteat & Taylor: ‘The CSX Clinchfield Route in the 21st Century‘
      • Stevens & Peoples: ‘The Clinchfield No. 1 – Tennessee’s Legendary Steam Engine‘
      • Way: ‘The Clinchfield Railroad, the Story of a Trade Route Across the Blue Ridge Mountains‘
    • CSX Railroad
      • Springirth: ‘CSX Transportation Heritage‘
    • ET&WNC: Listed on the website’s ET&WNC pages
    • Interstate Railroad
      • Wolfe & Wolfe: ‘Appalachian Coal Hauler’
      • Wolfe: ‘The Interstate Railroad‘
    • L&N Railroad
      • Castner, Flanary & Dorin: Louisville & Nashville Railroad The Old Reliable‘
      • Flanary: The Louisville & Nashville Cumberland Valley Division
      • Flanary, Oroszi & McKee: ‘The Louisville & Nashville in the Appalachians‘
      • Oroszi & Flanary: ‘Dixie Lines, The Louisville & Nashville Railroad‘
    • NC&StL Railway
      • Prince: ‘Nashville Chattanooga & St Louis Railway‘
    • Norfolk Southern
      • Esposito: ‘Norfolk Southern Railroad’
      • Lindsey: ‘Norfolk Southern 1995 Review‘
    • Norfolk & Western Railway
      • Newton: ‘Rails Remembered, Volumes 1-6
      • Warden: ‘Norfolk & Western: Diesel’s Last Conquest‘ and ‘Norfolk & Western’s Passenger Service’
      • Wolfe, Wilson & Mandelkern: ‘Norfolk & Western’s Clinch Valley Line‘
    • Pennsylvania Railroad
      • Jacobs: ‘The History of the Pennsylvania Railroad‘
    • Seaboard Air Line, Seaboard Coast Line, Seaboard System
      • Calloway and Withers: ‘Seaboard Motive Power‘
      • Carleton: ‘Locomotives of the Seaboard System‘
      • Griffin: ‘Seaboard Coast Line and Family Lines Railroad‘ and ‘All Lines North of Raleigh‘
      • Johnson: ‘Through the Heart of the South‘
    • Southern Railway
      • Davis: The Southern Railway, Road of the Innovators‘
      • Flanary, Lindsey & Oroszi. The Southern Railway‘
      • Webb: ‘The Southern Railway System: An Illustrated History‘
      • Wolfe: ‘Southern Railway Appalachia Division‘
    • Virginian Railway
      • Reisweber: ‘Virginian Rails’
      • Wiley & Wallace: ‘The Virginian Railway Handbook‘
  • Online Article: Flanary: ‘The Quick Service Route, The Clinchfield Railroad‘; Scientific American: ‘The Costliest Railroad in America‘
  • Online Videos: Ken Marsh on Kingsport area railroads and region’s history Video #1 | Video #2:
  • Websites:

3Cs Websites

Appalachian-Railroads.org | Clinchfield.org | Southern-Railroads.org