Marrowbone
Indicates Active Loading 1979-1980
Indicates Active Loading 2015
Mullins-Delp Lick
Moss No.1 Phipps
Victor
ELKHORN CITY Apex
Splashdam Rex
Haysi Holly Creek Delano Cranes Nest Caney McClure Blue Diamond
Kilgore Creek Big Rock Open Fork
Appalachia Big Stone Gap Lamberts Nora
Honey Branch Roaring Fork
Trammel Dante
Neece Creek
No. 52 Dock Noralla
Clinchco
Towers Rural
Triangle Wye Dock Sadie
Barrowman Advance Fuel L&R Dock Main Haynes Potter
Crooked Branch Ruth
Greenbrier Atomic Fuel
Pennington Natural Tunnel Speers Ferry Kermit Frisco
KINGSPORT Pactolus
Fordtown Gray Boone Elizabethton JOHNSON CITY Moccasin Gap
VIRGINIA TENNESSEE
Bristol Vance Unicoi ERWIN Loves Chestoa C
North Cove Avery
Sevier Hankins Clinchcross Old Fort Clinchfi eld Country
Illustrations by Otto M. Vondrak. Not all lines and stations shown. Not an offi cial map. ©2016 White River Productions
0 5 10 MILES 15 20 Spindale Forest City Alexander Mills VIRGINIA Brice ELKHORN CITY KENTUCKY ERWIN TENNESEE
SPARTANBURG SOUTH
CAROLINA Roebuck NORTH CAROLINA Inman Forster Mayo Chesnee Harris Duke Power Plant Bostic Gilkey
Thermal Fero
Tate Harris
OAL, the rock upon which the Clinchfield was built, is in decline throughout
the Appalachian
region. At one time the Clinchfield boasted no fewer than 30 different coal loading points between Elkhorn City, Ky., and Dante, Va., alone. Today, that number has dropped to only two, both located near Elkhorn City. Stiff competition from cheaper, easier-mined, low-sulfur coal from Wyoming’s Powder River Basin is one of the reasons. New seams of recoverable coal in the Appalachians are becoming harder to find, and more expensive and difficult to mine. Coal production now is half what it was in 2008. Abundant and cheap natural gas has been a killer as well. As a result, coal trains on the Clinchfield became ever-increasingly rarer, conspicuous by their absence, on a line where they were once so prevalent. In the last few years traffic was down, and in a big way. In a rail system that thrives on capacity, the former Clinchfield is one of four north-south corridors that were once competing with each other for traffic. With CSX able to choose from the former L&N routes from Cincinnati to Atlanta or Louisville, or the former Atlantic Coast Line from Richmond to points south, the Clinchfield was just too much railroad for the traffic available.
35 Fishery
ACL - Atlantic Coast Line AMTK - Amtrak CCO - Carolina, Clinchfi eld & Ohio CO - Chesapeake & Ohio CSX - CSX Transportation ETRY - East Tennessee Railway ETWN - East Tennessee & Western North Carolina INT - Interstate Railroad LN - Louisville & Nashville NS - Norfolk Southern NW - Norfolk & Western SAL - Seaboard Air Line SOU - Southern Railway TBRY - Thermal Belt Railway
TOP: It’s morning on the last day of 2007. CW44AC No. 259 and a sister are grinding up out of the south end of Elkhorn City and into the Breaks with a loaded southbound coal train. Just ahead are Pool Point Tunnel and another 30-plus miles of grueling uphill grade. ERIC MILLER
Starnes Hill Boulder Abingdon
St. Paul Miller Yard Norton Wood Dungannon
Hardwood Ft. Blackmore
NS/CSX SOU
Lyman
ETRY ETWN
Unaka Springs
Green Mountain Huntdale Lost Cove
Boonford Bandana
Kona
Spruce Pine Penland
Toe River Switzerland Altapass Ashford
Poplar Relief
Forbes Toecane Roses Branch
CSX CO
NS NW
CSX CCO
CSX SAL
NS NW
NS
CSX LN
SOU
NS SOU
TENNESSEE NORTH CAROLINA
NS/CSX SOU
NS SOU
CSX CCO
NS INT
NS SOU
CSX/NS ACL
SPARTANBURG
NS SOU
NORTH CAROLINA SOUTH CAROLINA
KENTUCKY VIRGINIA
CSX LN
NS SOU
NS/AMTK SOU
NS NW
TBRY SOU
NS SOU
NS SOU
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74