Railroads Across the Appalachians
- Home Page
- Appalachian Railroads: AT&O | B&O | BR | C&O | Chessie | CNO&TP | CRR | LC&C | L&N | NC&StL | N&C | N&W | OR&C | SOU | VGN
- Charleston Cincinnati & Chicago Railroad: History | Locos | Maps | John T. Wilder | Railfan Guide
- ET&WNC: History | Maps | Locomotives | Timetables | A. Pardee | G. Hardin | T. Matson
- Appalachian Railroad Cities: Asheville | Cincinnati | Erwin | Johnson City | Knoxville | Lynchburgh | Roanoke | Spartanburg | and more
- Railfan Guides
- Abandoned Lines & Railroads
- 3Cs Model Railroad: CRR, SOU, ET&WNC & the 3Cs
- Sources & Resources: Scholars & Authors | Books | Museums | Organizations | Links
- Appalachian-Railroads.org: Site Map | Editor
- Related: Clinchfield.org | Southern-Railroads.org
Railroads Across the Appalachians
The Appalachian Mountain region of Kentucky, the Carolinas, Tennessee, and the Virginias has a rich heritage of very successful and legendary Railroads. The beautiful mountains provided great untapped natural resources and financial opportunities, which required an extensive network of railroads to prosper. But it was not always this way. In 1870, the Appalachians were virtually void of railroads and thirty years behind the rest of the country as far as commerce and transportation. From northern Virginia to the middle of Tennessee, a distance of over 600 miles, no railroad had traversed the mountains at 90 degrees.
Photo by Roger Puta: B&O Capitol Limited at Harpers Ferry VA in 1969
Bridging the Ohio River and the Atlantic Ocean
Initially, the goal of state and local governments and many businesses was to create trade routes to and from rivers and ocean ports. For example, Charleston SC wanted to bring more goods to their port. Cincinnati wanted to bring trade to their river docks. The farming, mining, coal, timber, and textile businesses in Appalachia needed a way to send their goods to these centers of commerce and transportation.
Eventually these multiple interests and needs grew to an even grander singular vision, ‘let’s connect the Ohio River and the Atlantic Ocean with a new and much better means of transportation, a railroad.’ About this same time, the need for coal, and the potential of mining and transporting coal in the U.S. and internationally was being realized.
Railroad Fever
Photo: Roger Puta, Chessie System at Moss Run VA 1981
The transcontinental railroad had given our country a vision, a fever, of what the potential of rail transportation could be. For the Appalachian region, the vast coal, iron, timber, textile, and agricultural goods could be reaped and sold bringing much needed commerce to the depressed Appalachian area. In addition to the natural resources, the region was also the most direct route for the grand vision of laying rails from the Ohio River to the Atlantic Ocean, creating new commerce, and replacing very slow, indirect, and inefficient canals, rivers, and wagon roads. But, building and operating a railroad across and through the mountain ridges was challenging at best.
Appalachian-Railroads.org
This website will chronicle the Appalachian railroads and their visionary entrepreneurs that tried, failed, and eventually succeeded in traversing the mountainous region. Much of our focus will be on the Charleston Cincinnati & Chicago (3Cs), Chesapeake & Ohio (C&O), Clinchfield (CRR), Louisville & Nashville (L&N), Norfolk & Western (N&W), Southern Railway (SOU), and their predecessors and related lines. As a testament to the opportunities of building across the Appalachians hauling coal and manifest freight, these railroads were extremely profitable and did not experience the financial calamities most railroads experienced. These railroads by all measures were iconic and industry-leaders.
Photo: CSX in 2009. Further down the page, see Ron’s description of this ‘popular’ photo spot at Poplar, NC.
Today, these early rail lines are now primarily owned and operated by CSX or Norfolk Southern Railroads, with some short line operators profiting by keeping the secondary routes operational. Over the months and years ahead, we will add much more information about the railroads and the region as it was yesterday and as it is today.
But for now, let’s continue our Appalachian Rail journey across time and across the mountains.
Next: 1870 Railroad Void
Read more on page 2: A Railroad Void
Home Page Sections: Home | Railroad Void | First Appalachian Railroads | Breaking the Mountain Barrier | The Appalachian Region and its Railroads Thrive. Website Sections: Appalachian Railroads | 3Cs | ET&WNC | Appalachian Cities | Railfan Guides | Abandoned Rails | Model Railroad | Sources & Resources
Ron Flanary Photo Above
A “popular” photo spot for photographers along the former Clinchfield Railroad is this curve at Poplar, N.C. This southbound coal train is not long out of Erwin but has been slowly grinding upgrade through the Nolichucky River Gorge (actually the Toe River by this point). The date is October 21, 2009. CSX had just started using DPUs running through on southbound coal trains on this route rather than a single manned pusher out of Erwin. The pusher would cut off here on the fly and return to Erwin for the next shove. The DPU set-up accelerated these trains quite a bit on the long pull to the top at Altapass, N.C. The partially graded but never built Johnson City Southern right of way is on the west side of the river (to the left here).
For More Information – Sources and Resources
The following are wonderful resources for those interested in Appalachian Railroads. They also serve as sources of information for Appalachian-Railroads.org
- Association/Archives: Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Historical Society
- Association/Archives: Chesapeake & Ohio Historical Society
- Association/Archives: Louisville & Nashville Railroad Historical Society
- Association/Archives: Norfolk & Western Historical Society
- Association/Archives: Southern Railway Historical Association
- Archives of Appalachia: ETSU, Johnson City TN
- Book: Drury: The Historical Guide to North American Railroads
- Book: Flanary, Lindsey & Oroszi: The Southern Railway
- Book: Goforth: ‘Building the Clinchfield’ and ‘When Steam Ran the Clinchfield’
- Book: Graybeal: ‘The Railroads of Johnson City’
- Book: Irwin & Stahl: ‘The Last Empire Builder: The Life of George L. Carter’
- Book: King: ‘Clinchfield Country’
- Book: Marsh: ‘Clinchfield in Color’
- Book: Poole: ‘A History of Railroading in Western North Carolina’
- Book: Poteat & Taylor: ‘The CSX Clinchfield Route in the 21st Century’
- Book: Stevens & Peoples: ‘The Clinchfield No. 1 – Tennessee’s Legendary Steam Engine’
- Book: Way: ‘The Clinchfield Railroad, the Story of a Trade Route Across the Blue Ridge Mountains’
- Book: Wolfe: Southern Railway Appalachia Division
- Magazine: ‘Trains‘
- Magazine: ‘Classic Trains‘
- Website: Carolana.com – North Carolina Railroads, South Carolina Railroads
- Website: HawkinsRails.net
- Website: StateOfFranklin.net which hosts Johnson’s Depot
- Website: RailFanGuides.us for Johnson City and for Erwin
- Website: SteamLocomotive.com
- Website: WvncRails.org – North Carolina and West Virginia Railroads
- Video: Ken Marsh on Kingsport area railroads and region’s history Video #1
- Video: Ken Marsh on railroads and region’s history Video #2:
- Article: Flanary: ‘The Quick Service Route, The Clinchfield Railroad‘
- Articles: ‘Johnson City Comet‘
- Article: Scientific American: ‘The Costliest Railroad in America‘
- Personal Maps & Memorabilia: Documents, maps and track charts
Contact Us
Would enjoy hearing from you if you have questions, suggestions, edits, or content that you are willing to share. Don’t hesitate to reach out if you have similar interests in the railroads or model railroading.
3Cs Websites
Appalachian-Railroads.org | Clinchfield.org | Southern-Railroads.org