I
Misty clouds, rising from the dark green faces of the Great Smoky Mountains for the duration of the morning, appeared like smoke tendrils. The twelve-car train, wearing the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad’s tuscan red and Rio Grande gold livery and pulled by an EMD GP-9 diesel locomotive, vibrated and clanged it is bell atop the gravel-imbedded rails next to the gray, wooden Bryson City depot, as it prepared for it is imminent, 44-mile, round-trip departure to Nantahala Gorge. Passengers, some of whom had dislodged from buses, inundated the tiny portico waiting area, lulled into a North Carolina mood by a guitar-strumming trio. I would make the journeying in the MacNeill Club Car, number 536, today, attached to generator car 6118 and trailed by Silver Meteor dining car 8015. That journey, inextricably tired to these western North Carolina mountains, could trace it is roots to the mid-1800s.
Although the ruggedly beauteous area had been rich in natural resources, such as timber, fertile soil, and minerals, the Appalachian and Blue Ridge Mountains, peeking at 6,000 feet, had rendered it detached and inaccessible, with a rough, wagon-plied route it is only connection with the rest of the state. After significant attempts to persuade the state legislature of North Carolina to rectify this deficiency, it had consorted to subsidize the construction of track amid Salisbury and Asheville in 1855, to be applied by the Western North Carolina Railroad.
A smooth development period, spanning six years, had been thwarted in 1861 by the Civil War, at which time a good deal of 70 miles of rail had yet to be laid, but instinctive had in the end been regained 16 years later, when convict labor had been applied for the firstborn time. Five hundred tracklayers had been subdivided into 150-men camps, each of which had been led by a captain, a foreman, and various guards.
An erroneous route survey, revealing that existent topography had been unsuitable for track, had required another decade to the right way determine, and had been exacerbated by crude, hand tool usage and primitive rock remotion methods, the rocks themselves expanded by fire-created heat and cracked after drenchings with cold water.
The rails, following Indian trails and cow paths, entailed an 891.5-foot elevation gain with an intermediate two-percent grade, and passed through five tunnels, and the precarious route had scarcely been forged with safety. Indeed, on March 11, 1879, the Swannanoa Tunnel, which had been being bored from both ends, had collapsed and without any delay crushed 21 workers.
Murphy, already the eastern terminus of the Marietta and North Georgia Railroad, served the same aim in 1891 when the tracks for the Western North Carolina’s Murphy Branch had been laid, even though six years later than planned, and traffic interchange amid the two had been facilitated when the former had changed it is gauge from narrow to standard. The 111 miles from Asheville had, for the introductory time, been connected by rail.
Despite the delays incurred by it is construction, it is crude method, topographical obstacles, rough roadbed, and lack of ballast had oftentimes caused derailments, a condition partially alleviated with the addition of culverts and abutments.
Rapidly getting the lifeline to the communities lining it, it carried supplies, agricultural products, and timber, and connected with other, existent shortline railroads, such as the Alarka Valley, the Appalachian, the Carolina and Tennessee Southern, the B&B, the Smoky Mountain, the Ritter Lumber Company, the Sunburst, and the Tuckasegee Southeastern, but it had always been plagued by steep grades, sharp curves, low-capacity locomotives, and inferior maintenance.
Three years after it is completion, the Southern Railway took control of it, and, in 1907, it had been reorganized as the “Murphy Division,” with Bryson City serving as it is headquarters. Its local businesses and industries, fabricating pulpwood and pallets and selling propane, had to a considerable degree relied on rail transport to aid their activities, routinely calling for feed, cross ties, lumber, and sand.
Improved road access, however, gradually substituted the need for the rails. In 1937, for instance, two daily trains had departed Murphy-a freight service at 0600 and a passenger run at 0800-but by 1944, only a single passenger train had plied the line, leaving Murphy at 0715 for Asheville and returning at 1415. Aside from supplying increased western North Carolina access, road development had been necessitated by the opening of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Diminishing timber resources, coupled with the completion of the nearby Fontana Dam, had in the end resulted in the permanent discontinuation of passenger services on July 16, 1948. Thirty-two years later, in 1980, 2,239 freight car loads had plied the rails, yet by 1987, the number had dwindled to 817. During the last three years, by which time the railroad had been acquired by Norfolk Southern, steadily scheduled service, of no more than five cars, had only been maintained amongst Waynesville and Andrews, with stops in Murphy only sporadically made.
Maintenance costs, already high because of the 34 bridges connecting Dillsboro with Murphy and the exuberant track curvature, had escalated without a commensurate increase in revenue, and in 1984, the Champion Paper Mill, long dependent on the line for it is business, had converted it is conventional pulpwood product to woodchips, packaged in a cube whose size had precluded it is rail transport through the Dillsboro and Rhodo tunnels. Costs to either lower their roadbeds or increase their ceiling heights had been prohibitive, in particular for use by only a single company. As a result, the papermill had been forced to truck it is productions to Canton and Norfolk Southern, unable to stem it is losses, had been forced to abandon the 67 miles of track among Dillsboro and Murphy in 1988.
Although assorted potential operators had explored both passenger and freight uses for it, none had been financially self-sustainable, and on July 18 of that year, the North Carolina Department of Transportation had forcibly purchased the track for $650,000 for the intended introduction of a passenger excursion train operated by the newly-established Great Smoky Mountains Railroad.
Its original equipment, two GP-9 locomotives from Burlington Northern and Union Pacific, along with various converted, open coaches, had been joined by a 1942 Baldwin steam engine in the first place built for the US Army and two more GP-7 diesels from Chicago and North Western by 1995.
Its present fleet, comprised of open cars, coaches, “Crown” coaches, club cars, dining cars, and cabooses, had been acquired from various railroads and extensive refurbished. Track modifications, whose 80- and 85-pound ratings stipulated 25-mph greatest or most complete or best possible speeds, have entailed heavier rail and track side lubricator installations on sharp curves, the reinforcement of a good deal of trestles, and the redecking of the bridge crossing the Tuckasegee River at Dillsboro.
In 1996, the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad purchased the Dillsboro-Andrews division of track from the state of North Carolina, while the state itself continued to own the remainder of it, from Andrews to Murphy.
Acquired three years later, on December 23, 1999, by American Heritage Railways, the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad became one of three excursion trains owned by the new company, which operates similar ventures in Colorado and Texas.
II
Bryson City, origin of my own Nantahala Gorge excursion, is a mountainside community of 1,400 located on the Tuckasegee River and named after Colonel Thadeus Dillard Bryson. Incorporated in 1887, it had been laid out in accordance with the ancient trails and roads of the Cherokee, who had in the first place referred to it as “Big Bear Springs,” and today serves as a gateway to the Great Smoky Mountains and is the hub for the railroad. Because of it is proximity to the Fontana Dam, it had temporarily burgeoned for the duration of it is construction period.
The current railroad depot, built for the duration of the 1890s, is the only one remaining from the Southern Railway’s operation of the line, even though it is freight storage share had since been got rid of and substituted by an open portico. A one-and-a-half mile long rail yard, of four tracks, had facilitated the town’s galore industries, including the Carolina Wood Turning Company, the Carolina Building Supply, the Southern Concrete Company, and a petroleum dealer, while a turntable, a water tank, and a coal chute had been instrumental in the then-present use of steam locomotives. Bryson City is located at mile marker 63 on the track running from Asheville to Murphy.
My train’s supplement had included the 1955-manufactured diesel engine, a generator car, the MacNeill club car, the Silver Meteor dining car, the Dixie Flyer dining car, the Conductor’s Café, the Bryson City coach, the Wildwater open car, the Cherokee coach, the Fontana open car, the Crescent Limited coach, and a caboose.
A car coupling-created lurch preceded the train’s initial motion at 1030, as it tardily glided over Everet street-imbedded track, soon mirrored by the stationary, red and gold Great Smoky Mountains Railroad’s chain of coaches cradled by the freight yard, before it plunged through dense, closely tunnel-like foliage at increasing, though still-gentle speeds.
Re-emerging from the dense forest, whose tall, thin trees stood like sentinels guarding the single track, the chain of cars inched away from Bryson City, paralleling the north bank of the Tuckasegee River. The primary roadbed, curing to the right at mile 64.5, had been substituted by the present route in 1944 because of dam construction-created flooding.
Traversing a steel truss bridge, which had been constructed in 1898 and spanned 426 feet, the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad crossed the Nantahala River, and therefore arced into a 12.1-degree curve, commencing an almost-imperceptible climb up a 1.3-percent grade, before reaching it is summit by means of a horseshoe curve to the left. The Alarka Creek, a blue sheen amid the blur of deep forest green, flashed through the left windows.
The train’s tame rock, lulling me into relaxed serenity, prompted closer internal inspection of the MacNeill club car in which I rode. The line’s most recent addition, it had been built in the 1940s and had antecedently been indicated the “Powhatan Arrow,” operating Norfolk and Western’s service of the same name on it is Premier line until 1982, at which time it had been transposed to the merged Norfolk-Southern’s Steam Program. Although it had been refurbished in 1993, it had been subsequently damaged the following year in a collision in Lynchburg, Virginia.
No longer necessitated after the Steam Program had been discontinued in February of 1995, it had been auctioned and acquired by the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad, renamed in honor of Malcolm and Jean MacNeill for their years of service and dedication, and for their resourcefulness of an economically viable western North Carolina scenic railway. It had been inaugurated into this service in mid-1999 on the very Nantahala Gorge run I had presently made after meticulous restoration.
Opulently decorated, it had featured a serving area; single, swivelable, tan-upholstered, opposed easy chairs divided by round tables on one side, and pairs divided by rectangular ones on the other; wood-grained wall paneling; brass lamps above the tables; and thick, red carpeting. Fruit salad, blueberry muffins, and coffee had been served shortly after departure.
The sun, in the end managing to tear the billowing white, gray, and silver cloud deck open, revealed patches of blue. The pine green, glass-reflective surface of Fontana Lake, once a fertile valley, flicked through the dense foliage before opening up to a full water body, at mile 72.2. Its very creation had dictated the current railroad’s route.
The Murphy Branch track, having been 8.5 miles longer, but with gentler grades, had followed the north bank of the Tuckasegee River to Bushnell, the little community located at the converging point of the Little Tennessee River and the junction of the Carolina and Tennessee Southern Railway Company’s track. But World War II-necessitated demand for increased electrical power to facilitate production of critical war materials had sparked the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Fontana Dam Project and the Murphy Branch’s track rerouting.
Fontana, a town 1.5 miles from the construction site, had been nucleic to it is successful completion and the Carolina and Tennessee Southern’s track, extended 2.84 miles along the Little Tennessee River, had formed the temporary lifeline to it, alleviating material and machinery transport. A timber trestle had been built over Eagle Creek. A four-track rail yard, long sufficient to help 100 cars on each of it is spurs, along with a machine shop, a carpenter shop, a warehouse, and storage areas, had formed the base of the project, and cement-filled boxcars had run from Bryson City to the dam, conveying 8,000 cubic yards of concrete and 15,000 tons of sand and gravel per day.
The war had carried two stipulations: the dam had to be finished within a two-year amount of time and steel could not be allocated for it, necessitating relocated or reconstructed bridges and enormous amounts of fill to alternate for other than as supposed or expected necessitated trestles.
Three dissimilar rivers had formed the bottom of the newly-created Fontana Lake when the resultant reservoir had flooded 24 miles of former Murphy Branch track from Bryson City to Weser, and the dam, at 480 feet, had been the most eminent in the eastern United States and the fourth-largest in the world when it had been finished in 1944.
The old line, discontinued by the Southern Railway amongst mileposts 64.5 and 88.2 on September 25 of the former year, had been substituted by the new one on July 30, 1944.
Eating away the steel girder, concrete stanchion-supported Fontana Lake Bridge, the present Great Smoky Mountains Railroad crossed the evergreen-reflected water.
At milepost 76, orchard remnants, emplacement of the former Southern Railway president’s summerhouse, moved by. Following the azure of Fontana Lake, the diesel locomotive negotiated the 14.2-degree curve to the right at mile 77.8, the relocated line’s sharpest, which could only be safely traversed at five mph.
The Nantahala River, a liquid life strength exploding into little fumes of white anger with each rock and boulder obstacle thrown in it is path, paralleled the 12-car link.
Lunch, served in the Silver Meteor dining car attached to the MacNeill club car, had included grilled vegetables, portobello mushrooms, and creamy goat cheese on a hero, served with seasoned potato wedges and a side of lettuce and tomato. The two-axle, lightweight car, built in 1940 for Seaboard Airline Railway and restored by the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad in 1994, had featured a forward galley; twelve, four-place, black lacquer tables with upholstered, floral motif-sporting chairs; small, brass lamps; and gray, geometric textured carpeting which had adorned the bottom half of it is sidewalls.
The Conductor’s Café, a snack car constructed in 1949 and an substitute eating venue, had been operated as a dormitory on the Atlantic Coast Line Railway and had likewise seen brief service with Amtrak before being converted to it is present configuration in 1997.
Plying the last mile of relocated track, the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad passed Weser Creek Falls and the Nantahala Outdoor Center before crossing the Appalachian Trail at milepost 80, now cradled by steep mountains which formed Nantahala Gorge and impeded all but the high, afternoon sun’s rays from penetrating it. The track, paralleling the river, had been laid close to the mountain’s side with the help of not one thing more than picks and shovels and seemed to bore through cool air and nature’s dense, perennially-green, vegetation-created tunnel.
The caves beyond the coaches’ right windows had once been applied by hunters and settlers and had been instrumental for the duration of the Cherokee’s exile to Oklahoma in it is Trail of Tears period.
Maneuvering through the line’s sharpest curve, of 17 degrees, at milepost 83.2, the train neared Talc Mountain, approaching Nantahala, once the last emplacement of a water tank, a coal chute, and a sand tower for replenishing steam engines, thence calling for sufficient provision for the 56-mile round-trip to Murphy and back. Today, it had served as my own journey’s terminus.
Diesel locomotive 1751, disconnecting from it is 11-car chain, passed it on the Stanley track to it is right before reconnecting in front of the caboose and reinitiating motion, now in the opposite direction, after a scarcely perceptible lurch, destined for the Nantahala Outdoor Center and a one-hour interlude.
Gently lurching and rattling, the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad retraced it is path, boring through the forest green walls which reeked not of soot or coal, but rather of dense vegetation.
Amid the rushing of the river, where the tracks briefly doubled, it inched into the Nantahala Outdoor Center. Immediately above the green canopy, tiny specks of blue had rendered the other than as supposed or expected white and silver cloud blanket an afternoon mosaic. The center itself, starting point for rafting excursions and permanently suffused with the heavy scent of pine, had been comprised of assorted wooden, rustic cabins housing gift ships and restaurants.
After having been pelted by a fierce, but quick rain shower for the duration of it is one-hour rest, the diesel locomotive, once again signaling imminent departure with it is whistle, freed it is brakes at 1400 and reinitiated momentum, each car induced into coupling-snagged motion like a chain in mimicked reaction.
The Nantahala River, now paralleling the train on the right side and a reflectivity of the mountain-covered vegetation, appeared a crystal green mirror. The tame blue of the sky crested the towering trees.
Traveling in a northwesterly direction, the long chain of cars thread it is way through the dense forest toward the almost-blue peaks of the Great Smoky Mountains ahead, their wheels screeching in protest as they adhered to the track’s curvatures.
The cork on the champagne bottle had been popped and cheese and crackers had, in the meantime, been served in the MacNeill club car.
Fontana Lake, draped by green-carpeted hills and dotted with houseboats, once again glided by, now visible through the long, rectangular windows on the left side, as if they had served as big television screens depicting a world from which one had been temporarily disconnected in the self-contained coach.
Following the dense, green mountain valley-cradled tracks, the train once again traversed the steel truss bridge and inched past the railroad yard, crossing Evert Street in Bryson City and snagging it is brakes for a final time abreast of the gray depot.
Climbing down from the MacNeill club car, I stepped back on to the gravel and caught glimpse of the last car. Behind it lay a track comprised of light rails laid by convicts through mountainous, river-abundant terrain, having requiring restricted bridges, little tunnels, tight curves, and varying grades. Behind it lay a story of the Murphy Branch, which had provided the lifeline to the Great Smoky Mountains’ isolated communities, extenuating their growth and development, and connecting town to town. And behind it lay the uttermost connection-the one from soul to soul.
Opening the door, I stepped into the Bryson City depot.
Not a Good Bye