Here are clips of parts of the Chattanooga Div. which is under construction.
The cluttered image is of the Nashville Terminal which will appear as part of the Chattanooga, MainLine, and Henderson Div. routes. It can also be released as a route itself if someone wants to flesh out the Nashville terminal which I would call moderately complex. It shows the terminal as it has been since the advent of Amtrak when all passenger service soon died through Nashville. There was a Florida train until the purge of 1979. For the purposes of the other image, the line going off toward the lower right is the Chattanooga Div.
The other image is of the Chattanooga Div. as it current is under construction. The short branch about the mid point going west is the Shelbyville, Br. now operated as the Walking Horse and Eastern RR. It is owned by the city of Shelbyville and a contractor operates it. Proceeded on down, the long branch angling toward the northeast is the Sparta Branch and note that the last little bit which kinda hooks to the right was abandoned in 1936. The branch further down that extends several miles before hooking around to the south is the Tracy City Br. which ended originally at Palmer which was the site of two coal mines that operated into the late 1950s. Then the branch was pared back until there was nothing left after about 1/3 of the length (which will be Tracy City) and finally the remainder was abandoned in 1985 or so by CSX.
Two more branches will be included. The Sequatchie Valley Br. starts from a point further to the southeast and extends in a northeast direction, roughly parallel to the Tracy City Br. but in the Sequatchie Valley rather than up on the Cumberland Plateau. Sequatchie is a Native American name, Cherokee I believe. Lastly just above the start of the Tracy City Br. there will be the Huntsville & Part of the Columbia Br. extending in a southwesterly direction. The branches range from 37 to 60 miles in length except for the Shelbyville which is about 10.
The portion extending at near 90 degrees to the NW to SE main, is that part of the mainline from Stevenson, AL to Chattanooga, TN and the Sequatchie Valley line starts off this part of the mainline a short distance to the right of the 90 degree turn at Stevenson. The complex about the mid-point of this part is the Widow's Creek Steam Plant yard etc. The TVA shut it down some years ago but the coal came by unit train from a mine near Paradise, KY which will be part of the Henderson Div. Once both of these are complete, activity creators should have a ball and this unit train, when I worked in Tullahoma, TN 1963-1965, had orange bottom dump cars and was pulled by GP-30s, and yes it had a caboose. That was in L&N days. I left Tullahoma in 6/65 and worked on the Southern, later the FRA, and still later Chessie/CSX, and then after retiring from CSX, I worked for a signal design contractor for several more years - and at 87 in 6 weeks, God willing, I'll do a couple of docent trips on the C&TS in late Sept. when crowds are big and docents are scarce.
NASHVILLE.jpg CHATT_01.jpg
The cluttered image is of the Nashville Terminal which will appear as part of the Chattanooga, MainLine, and Henderson Div. routes. It can also be released as a route itself if someone wants to flesh out the Nashville terminal which I would call moderately complex. It shows the terminal as it has been since the advent of Amtrak when all passenger service soon died through Nashville. There was a Florida train until the purge of 1979. For the purposes of the other image, the line going off toward the lower right is the Chattanooga Div.
The other image is of the Chattanooga Div. as it current is under construction. The short branch about the mid point going west is the Shelbyville, Br. now operated as the Walking Horse and Eastern RR. It is owned by the city of Shelbyville and a contractor operates it. Proceeded on down, the long branch angling toward the northeast is the Sparta Branch and note that the last little bit which kinda hooks to the right was abandoned in 1936. The branch further down that extends several miles before hooking around to the south is the Tracy City Br. which ended originally at Palmer which was the site of two coal mines that operated into the late 1950s. Then the branch was pared back until there was nothing left after about 1/3 of the length (which will be Tracy City) and finally the remainder was abandoned in 1985 or so by CSX.
Two more branches will be included. The Sequatchie Valley Br. starts from a point further to the southeast and extends in a northeast direction, roughly parallel to the Tracy City Br. but in the Sequatchie Valley rather than up on the Cumberland Plateau. Sequatchie is a Native American name, Cherokee I believe. Lastly just above the start of the Tracy City Br. there will be the Huntsville & Part of the Columbia Br. extending in a southwesterly direction. The branches range from 37 to 60 miles in length except for the Shelbyville which is about 10.
The portion extending at near 90 degrees to the NW to SE main, is that part of the mainline from Stevenson, AL to Chattanooga, TN and the Sequatchie Valley line starts off this part of the mainline a short distance to the right of the 90 degree turn at Stevenson. The complex about the mid-point of this part is the Widow's Creek Steam Plant yard etc. The TVA shut it down some years ago but the coal came by unit train from a mine near Paradise, KY which will be part of the Henderson Div. Once both of these are complete, activity creators should have a ball and this unit train, when I worked in Tullahoma, TN 1963-1965, had orange bottom dump cars and was pulled by GP-30s, and yes it had a caboose. That was in L&N days. I left Tullahoma in 6/65 and worked on the Southern, later the FRA, and still later Chessie/CSX, and then after retiring from CSX, I worked for a signal design contractor for several more years - and at 87 in 6 weeks, God willing, I'll do a couple of docent trips on the C&TS in late Sept. when crowds are big and docents are scarce.
NASHVILLE.jpg CHATT_01.jpg
Comment