The "Old Southern Grade" extends on past the Sequatchie River near the Marion County Landfill before crossing the road to the landfill. Then it rises above the fields and the bogs it created through several farms.
The rails were actually in place and working trains used the line at South Pittsburg to just past a bridge over Battle Creek where it enters the Tennessee River.
When the work was called off due to Southern's financial woes, the workers were about to extend the track on to the Sequatchie River, where a bridge was to have been erected on the waiting piers.
The tall piers still remain in place for the bridge that was across Battle Creek. Several men died building this bridge when a steel section slipped.
One Battle Creek pier is on the Thomas farm across from the city municipal park and boat landing. Several others were positioned in the creek leading to a couple of piers on the other bank at the boat landing. These lead to an interesting overpass, where the train went across a country road that led to the river. The overpass has long stood as an odd and dysfunctional monument to the great project that failed. It has also become a popular backdrop for wedding photos. There were several similar overpasses nearby, but those were taken down during the construction of the Highway 72 bypass. Before the bypass came through, that area, except for the Jaycee boat launch, from downtown to the river was no-man's land and a road actually went through the overpasses.
Near this overpass next to the river is a dock framework of old pieces of rail. This may be the only extant rail from the Stevenson Extension.
At South Pittsburg the Old Southern Grade is paved on a narrow section that goes through a "Shanty Town" of shacks south of 3rd Street. This roadway is called Southern Grade Road.
The Stevenson route was very close to the Sequatchie Valley Railroad for several miles. However, it stayed on the river side until a crossing near the state line, where the Sequatchie Railroad heads for Bridgeport. Then the terrain was relatively level on to Stevenson.
The tracks that had been put into place were not taken up for many years, though no trains ever came after the work stopped. Meanwhile, businesses along the line made pleas for Southern to finally finish the work.
It was argued that the controlling grades on the Nashville rail line that went to Bridgeport and through Whiteside were eastbound 66 feet to the mile and westbound 72 feet to the mile. The controlling grades on the line through South Pittsburg would be eastbound 35 feet to the mile and westbound 53 feet to the mile. It was estimated there would be a savings of $1,000 per month in transportation expenses on account of being able to haul greater tonnage in trains.
Also, the Aetna Coal Company, then operating on the Nashville line, had given assurances of shifting to the new line, thus furnishing five to six coal cars a day. Other valuable coal properties could be opened up by short spurs from the new lines, the optimists said.
But Southern reported at the end of 1909: "Work on this project was discontinued in October 1907 because of the business depression. Nothing has since been done and the work already completed is deteriorating."
Despite the entreaties, the work never did resume. In the meantime, improvements were made on the Nashville line between Stevenson and Chattanooga via Bridgeport and Whiteside that Southern had always leased and its successor does to this day.
Finally, with much of the extensive work that had been done in disarray, the track and crossties were pulled up on the Stevenson Extension and the land sold to adjacent landowners around the time of World War II.
But many ghostly remnants still remain of the line that was just not to be.