western S-line discoveries

[The Idiot Railfan]

J-Guy, The Fireman, and I made a decision to explore the western end of the S-line between Morristown, TN and Asheville, NC this past Saturday.  We all had the day off, and were not about to waste the precious time due to less than acceptable photography weather, so we decided to scout out potential new photo locations.  We hit the jackpot in a couple of spots.

The first location is the Leadvale viaduct over the French Broad River.  This is where the line from Bull's Gap and the line from Morristown merge together before heading east.  While many have photographed trains on this bridge before, some might have missed a couple of archeological finds that we picked up on.  Apparently SOU had to do some line relocation here at Leadvale due to TVA activity a few decades ago, and had to bypass a couple of concrete artifacts.  One was this culvert (or overpass with some serious mud build-up below it:

http://www.mswphoto.com/railroad/SOUculvert_LeadvaleTN_022506.jpg

This was near an access road to a boat ramp adjacent to the abutments of the old river bridge.  Looking east towards the horizon from that abutment, I noticed some silo or tower off in the distance.  Some round-about driving lead us into Rankin, and to this giant remnant of the steam era, also located along the original alignment:

http://www.mswphoto.com/railroad/SOUcoaltower_RankinTN_022506.jpg

http://www.mswphoto.com/railroad/SOUcoaltower_RankinTN2_022506.jpg

As you can see, the "Red Brigade" (J-Guy's older truck in a fleet of two) is refueling under the tower - in fact, this roadbed is now an access road to a wildlife refuge observation area.

While we found many other scenic locations along the line, one other spot that spurred my interest was Weaver's Bend near the TN/NC border.  The railroad cut off about a half a mile of trackage by pulling the alignment away from a bend in the river, resulting in two bridges; one running east-west, and the other running north-south.  When I first spotted this location out in the Gazzetteer, I thought that this bend was cutting thru a tunnel.  But after browsing thru some online satelite photos, I realized that this was rather flat ground that the alignment was crossing.  We discovered upon our arrival (via a U.S. Forest Service road to access a public trail), that this area,  deeply nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains, contains a plethora of photographic opportunities.  My goal is to plant myself at this location for an entire summer's day and photograph nature as well as what few trains may roll along.

All-in-all, it was a good trip, despite the fact we only saw two trains (niether of which ran the section we were scouting).

[Butch]

Great pictures!

[cmherndon]

Awesome stuff, Mark.  Thanks for sharing!  It's always great to see old railroad structures still standing even now 80+ years later.