Chattanooga Railroad Series: The Unfinished Line To Stevenson (Part 6)

  • Tuesday, December 23, 2014

The Old Southern Grade went across the old Nashville highway known as the Old Stagecoach Road toward a second meeting with the Sequatchie River.

Near Highway 41 at the end of Dixon Lane, a house is built across the rail bed. The line continues through fields just below Shellmound Road. A high berm rises in some of the fields, and small water courses can be seen nearby where dirt was scooped out for the ill-fated line.

It crosses Shellmound Road at the current Nickajack Circle, then follows it along a straight route. It goes through woods past a gate on the Bible farm, then it reaches Interstate 24 just above where the east and west lanes of the freeway come back together after a wide separation near Nickajack Lake.

Across the interstate is the best-preserved section of the Stevenson Extension along its entire route. There is a high berm of some 30 feet going almost a mile through the quiet woods. The path on top is almost as clear as when the workers piled up this high section of the rail line that never was to be.

Then there is a large bridge support by the Sequatchie River as well as a similar buttress on the other side. A tall pier still stands in the middle of the river - these long years still awaiting a bridge framework, tracks and a churning locomotive.   

 

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