Trains are back. The Hiwassee River Rail Adventure’s “Hiwassee Loop” trip is entering its most popular season carting passengers through the Hiwassee River gorge along the historic Old Line from Etowah, Tn., to Farner. In its second year, the trip is the perfect length: not too long and not too short at three and a half hours, and the scenery through the river gorge is breathtaking.
Louisville & Nashville Railroad’s L&N Depot and Museum in Etowah, a vision of Victorian elegance, receives passengers to be shuttled to the Old Line at Gee Creek State Park. Passengers board there and are off for 50 miles of Hiwassee River Rail Adventure, 27 of which go through Cherokee National Forest and are mostly inaccessible by car.
When trying to picture yourself riding a vintage train through the woods, you may see images of a typical sheriff-bandit chase or of European families visiting each other. You may envision a romantic hobo, a railroad hobo I hoped retired CSX conductor Harvey Blassingame had met during his 33 years on the job and would describe to me. Mr. Blassingame was in the business from 1966 to 1999 and said hoboes didn’t really use trains much by then. He now volunteers as a conductor and track advisor.
The Tennessee Overhill Heritage Association and the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum partnered together in 2004 to reopen the entire Old Line from Etowah to Copperhill, which first opened in 1890. The line passed through a number of railroad hands, including L&N and CSX, and celebrated its 117th anniversary on the Fourth of July, 2007. The Old Line quit the passenger business in the 1960s and quit freight in just 2001.
“We believed this was a unique railroad corridor, unlike any other in the nation, with a history that demanded that we try to preserve the line,” says Linda Caldwell, executive director of Tennessee Overhill. She says citizens chose to keep the rail over conversion to trail.
Tennessee Overhill purchased the line in 2002 with the help of a $1.6 million loan from Glenn Springs Holding, Inc., a subsidiary of Oxy Petroleum.
“The real savior in this initiative is Glenn Springs Holding,” says Ms. Caldwell. “Their goal is to restore the ecology and economy of the (Copper) Basin area… We have been blessed with a number of good partners.”
TVA restored 13 miles of the track in 2003 to transport material to the Appalachia Powerhouse. Tennessee Minerals, a company interested in shipping iron ore abroad, finished restoring the track from there to Copperhill in 2005 but left shortly thereafter when the market dropped. Tennessee Overhill was left with a completely restored track on its hands. When Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum joined up in 2004, the two started chasing the dream of tourist passenger trains. 2006 was the first year in full swing.
“We have had good support from the private sector, local governments, the federal government and Tennessee state parks,” says Ms. Caldwell. “We are still waiting for support and recognition from the Tennessee Department of Transportation.”
The Hiwassee Loop was constructed to manage Bald Mountain’s grade through the Hiwassee River gorge. The trestle crosses itself once at 63 feet up, and at other points passengers look down steep hills to a track tail the train navigated minutes earlier. This is the third longest loop configuration in the world. A train has to be longer than 80 cars to catch itself at the bridge.
“When you get into the gorge you’re going to wonder how in the world they built a railroad in there,” says Ms. Caldwell.
Railroad historians say builders used old-fashioned dynamite when clearing a trail for the tracks: they heated the rocks and poured cold water over them to break them to bits. The volunteer conductors boast that a train’s rails have roots as way back as ancient Rome. The oddball four-foot, eight and a half inches width of the tracks is that of two horse rumps. The Old Line sports continuously welded rail and therefore no endearing clickity-clack.
As passengers ride past Gee Creek, through the old farming ghost town of Reliance and beside the river bottoms, they pass wildlife and forgotten fishing spots. Fox’s Cabin is gone but it’s still the name of a tried and true trout fishing area on the Hiwassee. Others say the river pools just past the Appalachia Powerhouse suspension bridge are the best for catching small mouth bass. Blue heron, osprey, bear, deer, even eagles and great blue rookery have been spotted in varying frequency along the route. Bring your binoculars to spy on animals, kayakers and fishermen.
At Farner the train’s engine is brought to the rear, the new front. The brakes are tested for the downhill trek and the train heads back to Gee Creek.
The old watchman house, at the beginning of the trip or the end depending on perspective, is a pretty clapboard home right up on the tracks to keep a lookout for friction fires on the wooden trestle bridge. If a fire sprouted, the employee would actually run out with a bucket of water to extinguish a spark. It is now a bed and breakfast.
The Polk County “News” and Polk County High School are working on a history book which should be published by fall color. PCHS’s award-winning film department will begin filming a documentary called “Iron Horses and Company Towns: A History of the Old Line Railroad” on Oct. 8 with a $9,850 grant it accepted Aug. 24 from The History Channel’s “Save Our History” program.
The Hiwassee Loop Trip runs once a day on weekdays and twice a day on weekends through November.
The other Hiwassee River Rail Adventure, the Copperhill Special, runs only one or two days a month from Etowah to Copperhill. The Copperhill Special is 90 miles through the entire Hiwassee Loop and on through the Great Copper Basin to Copperhill for shopping and dining.
For ticket information call (423) 894-8028, ext. 0 or visit www.tvrail.com.