CSX Chattanooga mainline and branches

[landnrailroader]

Friends,

Having released the N. Montana line, and I see that many have downloaded it, I have a few more weeks work to get the Knoxville Div. of L&N(CSX) to the point that I will upload a incomplete version of it, although it is more complete than most having many structures in the right place, with over 200 named bungalows for control points and protected road crossings. So I have started piddling along on another. This will be the line from Nashville, TN to Chattanooga, TN, originally built in the late 1840s and with a summit tunnel above Cowen, TN being dug by many men by hand, with loss of life. There is one other tunnel atop Raccoon Mtn. that has been bypassed since that part was double tracked around 1920 or so. The main line is 152 miles with many industries. Since about 1950, it has been controlled by CTC. Originally built as the Nashville & Chattanooga, RR, it became part of the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis (never got to St. Louis) around 1900, and not long afterward the NC&StL came under control of the L&N, which was itself controlled by the ACL after 1905. In 1957 (approx.) the NC&StL became a integral part of the L&N system. All branches will be included except the Columbia Branch which is hard to trace on Google Earth after being abandoned in the 1930s, but I may try. So there are 5 major branches, some of which are now operated by shortlines. The Huntsville, AL branch, about 50 miles, now abanonded, along with the 12 mile Fayetteville line off of it. The Shelbyville Branch, about 12 miles, now operated as the Walking Horse & Eastern. The Sparta Branch which I have found enough visual clues to built entire as it existed until 1936, at which time the part east of Sparta was abandoned. This remaining approx. 60 miles are operated by the short line Caney Fork & Western. The Tracey City branch, mainly a coal mine road on which the mixed train that ran on it was referred to as the "Mountain Goat". It was entirely abandoned in 1985. Lastly the Sequatchie Valley branch, about 60 miles which was mostly abandoned a bit at a time starting in 1980.. There is also the Orme Branch off of the Sequatchie valley line which served coal mines and was abandoned many years ago. I will add to this thread from time to time.

The mainline extends more or less south from Nashville to Stevenson, AL where it turns northeast to reach Chattanooga. Although there are two distinct mountain ranges to cross, this indirect route of 152+ miles also carrys the Southern Railway (NS) by way of trackage rights from Stevenson to Chattanooga. This agreement stems from the construction of the Memphis & Charleston railroad prior to 1860. As such I was over that part of the line many times when I was manager of track geometry inspection on the SR. And as a railfan I have been over the whole line many times and before they were cancelled, I rode the mixed trains on the Sparta and Huntsville Branches in 1963.

Jerry Sullivan

[landnrailroader]

I have proceeded on past Laverge and Smyrna. There is a huge factory at Laverge that supports BridgeStone-Firestone and covers many acres. Then at Smyrna there is the huge Nissan plant that first started up 30 years or more ago. Since then it has been expanded a lot, and Nissan has moved their North American headquarters to Nashville. Now just about all automobiles and SUVs are made at Smyrna, while trucks are made at Canton, MS. I will have all plant tracks in place for both of these sites. Murfreesboro has a number of industries as does, Tullahoma and Decherd.

Jerry Sullivan

[landnrailroader]

Today, I marked all of the benchmark elevation points to Chattanooga and created marker files for those. It would be impossible to accurately duplicate all of the nuiances of the gradients on the track charts (which will be included with the route) so I create gradients between benchmarks. Then I went back to Smyrna and placed the tracks for the huge Nissan plant. Attached is a capture of that from track viewer. The tracks to the upper left go to what appears to be the HVAC plant. The curved portion at the bottom is actually a tunnel under the highway (US-70s/41) which is 4 lane with center medians. Once this route is out I think the activity creators will lose their minds, there is so much variety in what can be done. The diagonal line at the bottom is the main line. This is mile 23+ from Nashville. It is an area that I know as well as I know my backyard. There 2 more tracks in the left part of the group going to the top but there was not enough space to create them with the limitations of X- or M- tracks. If you look at this area on Google Earth, the aerials show many autoracks on these tracks. These would be where the cars are loaded onto the autoracks. Nissan Smyrna makes all the domestic cars and SUVs. Our Rogue was a 2016 product. My truck is a 2014 product of Canton, MS plant.

Jerry NISSAN_SMYRNA01.jpg

[jbtower]

Thanks for the updates, Jerry

[landnrailroader]

Much of what I will write in this update is only loosely related to train simulation and more to history. However, I have completed the Chattanooga line as far as mile 34, almost 35 and this area through Murfreesboro, TN, like Smyrna has a lot of industries and their related tracks, so activity creators should have enough to keep them busy for months once this one is released and detailed out by those more skilled at that, than I. So looking ahead we will in a week or two arrive at Tullahoma, TN where I lived for my first 2 years out of graduate school before going to work for the Southern Railway in 1965. Now there is one well known liquid product of Tennessee, called by many, "Jack the Black" but it is correctly called Jack Daniel Black Label. Good old Tennessee sipping whiskey made for more than 100 years at Lynchburg, TN which happens to be 14 miles south of Tullahoma on a highway that will eventually get you to Huntsville, AL. Now until 1957, there were 3 passengers trains each way, daily, on this line, and one other every 3rd day. After 1957, the Dixie Flagler (later Dixieland) was gone but we still had the Georgian, Dixie Flyer, and night local which was mainly a mail and express train.. One night a week, two very secure insulated box cars with cushion underframes would be spotted on a siding within spitting distance of the station bay window where the operator sat. On those nights, one or two 18-wheelers would appear aroundd 4pm along with several police escorts and the contents, yep, "Jack the Black" would be loaded onto those box cars while the police cordoned off the area. The Georgian would have left Chattanooga (it was usually on time) at 8pm EST and it would arrive in Tullahoma about 9:30pm CST. The consist would be two FP-7 units, a baggage car or two or perhaps one storage mail car, a couple of coaches, diner, and two sleepers, one of which would switch to the Hummingbird at Nashville and continue to Louisville & Cincinnati, and the other would go to Chicago on the Georgian. After passengers were exchanged, the train would pull ahead into the passing track north of the station & then back south on the lead leading to those 2 boxcars, which would be added. On arrival at Nashville a switcher would tag those 2 cars and move them to the head end of a waiting priority freight which would leave for Memphis as soon as it's engines were re-coupled to the train and a brake test was made. At Memphis the cars would interchange to foreign lines with one going to Vegas and the other to SanFrancisco.
I don't how the transloading of "Tennessee's Finest" could be simulated but the train handling could be and the complete but somewhat compressed Nashville Terminal will be a part of the route as well as 2 others in the making.

Jerry

[oper190]

Yah, Jake and Coke always good. *****
An interesting side note of History.

[landnrailroader]

The track gang spent a part of the weekend whooping it up because of the nearby Jack Daniel distillery (there is also one of another brand near Tullahoma) but yesterday good progress was made and we are now closing in on Decherd, TN another place I am quite familiar with. Decherd, among other things was the start of the Huntsville and Columbia branches of the old NC&StL and by the time I lived in the area, 1963-1965, the Columbia branch was abandoned back to Fayetteville, only 12 miles or so from the start of that branch at Elora, AL. However, the Huntsville branch was intact and a mixed train did a round-trip 3 days a week out and back from Decherd in 16 hours or less. I rode it in the spring of '65. Between Tullahoma & Decherd was a nearly 7 mile stretch without a curve of any degree which brings me to my point of discussion. The last curve is just north of Tullahoma and so I carefully laid out that curve and used a 7 minute, .5 degree piece (from Mtracks) to adjust the heading into the tangent. There is also a .1 degree piece but honestly these 86 year old eyes could not see any movement in it when I hit the "X" key. So the actual tangent is a zig-zag of .5 degrees, but X-tracks has a 500 meter, .25 degree piece which one with sharper eyes than me might use. At any rate, the track is technically straight for 7+ miles, but actually in 1-1.5 mile segments. It is a matter of trial and error to fit in such a long tangent. Today, I discovered that if I practically put my eyeball against the screen I can see the movement of the .1 degree piece, so from now on, when confronted with long tangents, I will use the 7 minute .5 & .1 degree pieces to set my tangent and then string together several 500m pieces until I get it as good as good a fit as I can. I still follow the rule about not having long pieces cross a tile boundary which was an issue in MSTS and I guess also is in TSRE/ORTS.

Jerry

[landnrailroader]

iN THE MIND'S EYE

As I lay the track southward on this mainline, eventually my gang of one comes to Cowan, TN which in days of old was the headquarters of the Chattanooga Div. of the NC&StL and was where CTC was installed very early in the latter years of WW-II. The machine existed here into the 1980s when it was moved to (as I recall, Chattanooga) and now it is in Jacksonville, FL. There was and is, a very sharp change in gradient at a point a few hundred feet south of the Main St. crossing in Cowan where going south, a downgrade of about .4% changes abruptly to a 1% upgrade, and then a few hundred feet further south, it changes to various amounts between 1.5% and 2.2% which continues to Cumberland Tunnel. Cumberland tunnel was dug by hand and black powder and completed in the late 1840s. There is a mid-point air shaft. So the attached image shows the markers from roughly Main St. until they disappear around a point of land around 400 feet higher in the distance. One other interesting feature is that there are two sidings at Cowan that lead off of the east or #1 track. Double track exists from Decherd to a few hundred feet north of Main St. in Cowan. These are both controlled sidings and consist of what appear to be #15 ladders at both ends, so, how do I make those using M-track components. Turned out to be pretty easy and I'll explain that step by step as I create the south set. In steam days, Cowan was a complex spot with a small roundhouse and various supporting tracks. It was (and is) a helper base for trains going either way over the hill. South of the mountain helpers are added at Sherwood, TN.

I have been to Cowan many times over the years as a railfan and in my younger days, I often hiked up to Cumberland Tunnel. So in my mind's eye I can see that track I will soon lay. It will appear as double track but it isn't because the right track, going south is the Tracy City branch which deviates to the right before the tunnel and then loops around on a approx. 3% grade to pass over the main line at the north portal of the tunnel. This is a famous location and many photographs were taken there. The branch became history around 1985. The mixed train that provided passenger service until 1970 or so was called the "Mountain Goat".

Jerry COWAN_SOUTH.jpg

[landnrailroader]

Continuing on south, we have traversed over Cumberland Mtn. and through it's summit tunnel which was dug in the 1840s using shall we say "unpaid" labor. Right up front, I want to say that both of my paternal great-grandfathers served with distinction in the Confederate Army and while I am disgusted with the reason for that unpleasantness, I salute them for having the intestinal fortitude to fight for what they believed in. One was a infantryman, and the other was a horse doctor in a well known cavalry unit. So much for my ancestral history. As we continue we come to Stevenson, AL where the railroad then turns northeast and goes through a corner of Georgia and into Chattanooga on the northwest side of Lookout Mtn. After a few miles, we come to the junction and rather impressive yard that served the Widow's Creek Steam Plant (TVA) from about 1962 until the plant closed around 2015 or so. The unit train loaded near Paradise, KY and by way of the Henderson Div. (a future effort) and the Chattanooga Div. it reached the steam plant. Typicially the train loaded or unloaded by day, and transited by night so few photographs exist of it. However the coal cars were Ortner (I believe I remember) rapid discharge types painted a bright orange color. New GP-30s were the motive power, usually 3 of them. A pusher was used southbound from Cowan to the summit tunnel and by some special rigging, these cut-off "on the fly".
The mainline was double track for which I used the M2 series. Then there were 6 tracks (A1 through A6 pieces), a gap, and then 4 more tracks (A1 through A4 pieces). To make it a little icky, compound ladders were used to some degree at both ends. When I do things like this, I use pieces of dynamic track to align the turnouts etc. as I want them and then I replace the dynamic with combinations of bits & pieces to match those dimensions. In the image, we are at the south end of the yard, which is actually slightly north of the north end, and we are looking southwest toward Stevenson. I haven't laid track to the steam plant yet, but you can see a line of markers for that track veering to the left at the top. The yard is completely intact up until about 2020 judging by what is seen in Google Aerials. Then in 2022, some of the group of 6 tracks is gone, and in the last image, all of the group of 6 is gone. The longest tracks in the yard are about 3/4 mile in length.
WIDOWS_CREEK_YD.jpg
Jerry

[landnrailroader]

After finishiing the main line from Nashville to Chattanooga, I am tackling the branchs. The first and shortest of these is the Shelbyville branch which originally ran about 7.9 miles from the mainline at Wartrace, TN to the town of Shelbyville. It dates from 1852. Shelbyville is known as the pinnacle of the Walking Horse breed or brand. Originally these highly sought after horses were used so ladies could easily ride side saddle. Today they are often shown at horse shows and kept as prized pets. There is (or perhaps was) a large auction and sale of these animals in Shelbyville. Around 1985, CSX abandoned the branch which was taken over by a commission in Bedford County. The commission contracted with Richard Abernathy to operate it and for several years it was called the "Walking Horse & Eastern RR". Richard, whose father was a close friend of my father, and Richard was a friend of mine operated a number of shortlines in the southeast. He is about a year older than me and I last saw him in 2005, so I guess he is still alive but he has sold off the various shortlines and this and another of his lines are operated as subsidiaries of Iron Horse Resources these days. Since at least 1998 or so, the line has ended just short of a crossing with US-41A and I have indicated this on the image. The long single line going towards the lower left corner served a large textile mill but that line has been gone for many years. I included it (and will include several others) just to tickle the activity creators.

Jerry shelbyville_br.jpg

[yellowdog]

My dad grew up in Estill Springs, and when I was a kid we used to visit there every summer for big family reunions. My dad's uncle, who I always knew as Uncle John, was a conductor on the NC&StL. I didn't find out about that piece of family history until I took up railfanning as a hobby during high school. Unfortunately Uncle John had dementia even when was a kid, so I never got to talk to him about his experiences. So even though my first love is Clinchfield, I kinda have a sentimental spot for the NC&StL

[landnrailroader]

Yes, YellowDog, I remember you from you showing me around some of your Clinchfield interest spots when the L&NHS had their meeting in Kingsport, 2003 if I remember right. My first interest is the L&N, but then there is the Milwaukee Road (which I rode often Chicago to Spencer, IA to see relatives) and the D&RGW. I started doing this MSTS/ORTS thing in 2001 a few months after retiring from CSX and still do it. If you want a real thrill, go to New Mexico & ride the C&TS. Your other half may like that Silverton better but it is NOT FOR RAILFANS. Best place to stay in Chama, NM is the Victorian B&B. I plan to redo the KIngsport & Blue Ridge subdivisions of CSX again, now that there are better tools & track to use.

Jerry Sullivan

[yellowdog]

Thanks for the recommendation, Jerry. The woman you remember--we divorced in 2007.
There was another trainsim community member around back then, living in the same general area (Bristol, I believe). An older gentleman. He was active in the online community and was the only other online community member I ever met in person. I don't recall his name now, but remember he was not in the best of health even back then. Do you happen to remember him?

[landnrailroader]

Yellowdog,

No, I didn't know anyone from around Bristol. You are still the only person I have met in person that I first knew on the "net" but I maintain contact with Lukas Lussar in Switzerland who super-detailed my Milwaukee Road routes. My first wife pulled the pin in 1969 - didn't want anymore of being a railroad wife. My 2nd succumbed to breast Ca in 1986 but all of her nieces and nephews still claim me. My present wife and I married in 1994 and last week was our 31st year of putting up with each other. She does not like trains either but does like the check she gets each month from Railroad retirement - sort of a bribe for putting up with a railroad guy for the last 7 years of my career. I didn't quit then though, and worked for a signal contractor until 2017 when Elmo took over CSX and did what I expected he would do. But then it was time to retire again. So from 2019 to 2023 I volunteered on the Cumbres & Toltec a couple of weeks a year.

Jerry

[landnrailroader]

Roller Coaster times----

While the main line of the Chattanooga Div. (L&N) was rather smooth and the ups & downs changes not so dramatic, such was not the case on the branch lines which leads to a change in my personal specifications. On main lines I use a .1% change in 10 meters, so that to change to 1% for example, takes 100 meters. In extreme cases I will use 5 meter pieces. Even 5 meters is too much on a branchline, so I am using 3 meter and in many cases 1 meter pieces, so the result is sort of a low roller coaster. The actual change in elevation, except east of Sparta (which was abandoned in 1936) is usually only a few feet and grades over 1.3% are unusual. East of Sparta though, climbing the Cumberland Plateau, required curves to 12 degrees (145.5meters, for which I use 150 meter radius & 120 meter radius pieces, mixed) and compensated grades to 3% which means that the gradient as far as ORTS is concerned is about 2.8%. Thus referring to the track chart I place locators on Google Earth at the low & high points and then measure the distance between them to average the gradient. And I put these in the marker file which will be temporary. When the route is released, the marker file will contain mileposts and anything else that impacts the track like bridge abutments, crossings, etc. On the Southern, we would have said that this (name branch) was just "laid right on the ground".

Jerry