In 1972, as part of the growing closeness between itself and its corporate children, Seaboard Coast Line created the “Family Lines,” a marketing name that combined SCL, Louisville & Nashville, Clinchfield, the Georgia Railroad, and the Atlanta & West Point plus Western Railway of Alabama. Yet it was still Clinchfield, with the “CRR” reporting mark proudly displayed on locomotive cabs and rolling stock. Timetables and paperwork were still emblazoned “Clinchfield Railroad Company.” Not even the creation of the Seaboard System Railroad in 1983, which consolidated the Family Lines railroads
RIGHT: The Virginia mountains are ablaze in fall colors on October 13, 1980, at Dante. While the 3004 is still wearing its original gray and yellow paint scheme applied at the La- Grange plant of EMD in 1966, GP38 number 2004 and her two trailing units are decked out in the colorful Family Lines livery. BELOW: One of the mine runs out of Dante was the Rex Turn, rolling along the main line between Delano and Haysi, Va., on April 22, 1980. The lead SD45 is a former Seaboard Coast Line unit swapped in 1977 as part of deal to send the Clinchfield’s seven GE U36Cs to the SCL in exchange for a like number of EMDs. RON FLANARY PHOTOS
into a single company, could wipe away the Clinchfield. For a time, the line was the Clinchfield Division of the Seaboard System, before it was split between the Corbin and Florence Divisions. CSX Transportation replaced Seaboard System in 1986. Yet, in the heart,
deep in the heart of its workers and its customers and its communities and its fans, it was still the Clinchfield. Name changes and new paint and updated signals and ways of operation could not change that simple fact. It was still the Clinchfield. And so it shall ever be.
34 JANUARY 2016 •
RAILFAN.COM
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