For the information of all who have never heard of kudzu, it is a vine native to Japan that was imported to the South many years ago with the thought that it would stop erosion and would be good as cow feed. It does a wonderful job of covering eroded areas so you do not see the erosion effect. It can cover other areas, climbing poles and guy wires, and becoming a general nuisance. When I lived in the South, a common saying was, "The Baptists and kudzu are taking over."
Quentin, are you from the South, too?
Johnny
WW: the closure of the Hendersonville - Brevard branch brings up a question. I often saw ballast being brought out of that branch from a rock mine. Is NS not buying that rock and if so has the high quality ballast played out????
Saluda was an extremely interesting RR location for me. As I mentioned before, we tried to visit and wait for train activity as we were passing near by on the interstate back and forth to Florida...but never did see any train movements there thru town.
Standing there, and trying to realize how much effort must be applied to bring any amount of weight up that grade is difficult to understand how it is even possilble.
An observation: By now, I wonder how much of the R of W the plant Kudzu has obliterated....?
Quentin
Boyd Where is this? Has anyone done a google earth search of this area?
Where is this? Has anyone done a google earth search of this area?
Just enter "Saluda, N C" into any good satellite program....The track {summit}, is right in the town of Saluda.
RudyRockvilleMD I went into the general store which is in the former train station, which might have been relocated from its old site,
The "former train station" mentioned was moved....from a location beyond the highway bridge and down grade {away from town}, about a quarter mile and I believe located on the right side of the R of W...{looking from the bridge}. Down where there was {perhaps still is}, a short side track on the other side of the track.
I don't want to stoke the fires of ignorance and speculation here, but nevertheless I will observe that the following have occurred since Saluda was taken out of service:
- NS has gotten more comfortable with AC traction motors, for really slow speed drag operation;
- DPUs are now pretty well understood and accepted, and even NS seems to be joining the western roads with operating them;
- ECP brakes are now in road trials, and NS is participating in them;
- Traffic volumes and capacity constraints hit previously unimagined levels, along with revenues and profits, anad capital expenditures back into the business;
- NS has adopted system-wide operations planning and train scheduling.
All of which is to say that the objective conditions affecting operations over Saluda have changed quite a bit for the better since then. If the NS system becomes clogged with trains and reopening the route over Saluda is one way to relieve that - say, by running unit coal train loads down the grade or empties upgrade, or even the higher HP/ton intermodals up that grade - I wouldn't rule it out. Just an observation (no inside information).
- Paul North.
Saluda is just southeast of Hendersonville, NC.
Mike
Modeling the "Fargo Area Rapid Transit" in O scale 3 rail.
Anyone have a map of where this is? Maybe I can good earth the area?
wallyworld " N&S did advise local officials of communities between Hendersonville and and Brevard of pending abandonment for the line that runs between the two towns.
" N&S did advise local officials of communities between Hendersonville and and Brevard of pending abandonment for the line that runs between the two towns.
That was the branch line that split off from the Saluda Grade main at Hendersonville. The track was already in bad shape, and if my memory serves correctly, the only customer left was a paper mill at Brevard. (the remainder of the branch to Rosman was abandoned years ago)
Joe H. (Milepost S256.0; NS Griffin District)
Pictures: http://anb740.rrpicturearchives.net
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/anb740
I seriously doubt if NS will reopen the Saluda Grade if they can send traffic another way. I lucked into a photo of W 77 going up grade through Saluda in 1995. I went into the general store which is in the former train station, which might have been relocated from its old site, and I asked if any trains had come through that day. A man who worked in the store told me he hadn,t seen any trains since he came in to the store at 9 AM that morning. Just then my scanner came to life so I rushed over to the bridge over the track where I photogrphed W 77 climbing the grade.
Traffic was suspended between Landrum and Flat Rock in December of 2001, and the line itself was railbanked for possible future use. NS cut the rails at Landrum in 2003 per FRA guidelines so that they wouldn't be responsible for maintaining the line in working order.
http://anb740.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=385482
All of the crossing gates have been removed, and crossing signals themselves haved been "bagged."
http://anb740.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=385483
A few of the track signals have had their signal heads removed, and will need to be replaced if the line goes back into operation; one guy in Landrum even had an entire signal mast from the line stuck up in his front yard! (Since the runaway track used time-out circuitry/signals to throw the switch at the bottom of the grade back for the main, eliminating the signaling on this line is out of the question if it's used again.) The code line power has of course been turned off to all of the signals. The washout in question occurred at MP36 a mile south of Melrose. Since NS has no obligation to fix the washout, it's still there as far as I know.
W W: Got to thinking and if you are interested in pulling up the photos I mentioned of the washout and the Ford pickup sitting high and dry on the tracks above the washout.....You might try the Search function on the forum. Go to 2006 and search thru for photos of such an event.....chances are they still might be there. There are over a dozen of them.....
Edit: Checked 40 pages and did not find them....
SPV atlas indicates that the line is abandoned, but I have found an error here and there in one atlas or another. We do know that NS is not currently operating any trains up or down the grade.
I had the pleasure of a round trip between Asheville and Hayne (the conductor recommended that I not go into Spartanburg lest I miss the westbound train) in the summer of '64. Going down, the conductor, flagman, and I sat in a roomette and had a good conversation. Going back up, we had an extremely slow trip because the weedkiller train had just come down, and the rails were slick with the weedkilling oil--and the sanders were not working well. I also went down in the spring of '67, riding the Carolina Special from Knoxville to Columbia.
Paul_D_North_Jrwallyworld - Might your quote above be from one of the posts to the "Carolina Heritage Line - Current News" ("CHL") webpage at the now apparently defunct saludagradeinfo web site ? I found the same as "cached" by Google under the heading of - July 18 , 2005 Reported by T. Grogan at: http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:82Y374AqZhIJ:www.saludagrade.info/CHLnews.html+Saluda+grade+reopen&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us - Paul North.
wallyworld - Might your quote above be from one of the posts to the "Carolina Heritage Line - Current News" ("CHL") webpage at the now apparently defunct saludagradeinfo web site ? I found the same as "cached" by Google under the heading of -
July 18 , 2005 Reported by T. Grogan
at: http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:82Y374AqZhIJ:www.saludagrade.info/CHLnews.html+Saluda+grade+reopen&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us
Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.
wallyworldCould you post them?
I don't have the "know how" to post photos on here but I certainly would send them to you via email but I took them off the computer here and they are copyrighted, so I can't violate that. Sorry. They really are good ones too.
Thanks W W for the photo....I can't tell if that is the same location I speak of. The one I have photos from shows a massive slide of the fill several hundred feet down the hillside and some one with a bit much to drink had actually driven down that R of W and got stuck when some of the ties were missing and the {Ford pickup}, was stranded almost in mid air sitting on it's frame and on the rails. Lucky for the dirver the truck didn't cascade down over the side of the tracks and roll a couple hundred feet down the hillside washout.....Might not have been very good for his health. That was back about 2006 I believe.
Could you post them?
That route is not abandoned as far as I know....Have not heard that it has been.....But it has been out or service for more than 7 years if I remember correctly...There was a big wash out occurred downgrade, I believe east from Saluda some years ago and I wonder if that was ever restored.....Some of the track was suspended across the washout.
Believe the correct description applied to the line is: Embargoed.
Have photos of the washout.
Edit: Tried and tried to witness operation on the "hill" there and never did succeed. At least I did get a good look at the structure of grade / track. A beautiful little town, especially in the early spring time with all the blossoms. Got good hot dogs in one of the restaurants too and enjoyed talking to Mr. Pace in the old General Store.....
" A conversation with NC DOT today revealed that at this time no movement has been made by N&S to reinstitute traffic on the "Saluda Grade". N&S did advise NC DOT however that forthcoming NC coal (power station) contracts would play a significant part in whether or not the portion of the line between Landrum and Flat Rock would be re-opened. N&S did advise local officials of communities between Hendersonville and and Brevard of pending abandonment for the line that runs between the two towns. My NC DOT advisor noted that N&S official DID NOT suggest that the "Saluda Grade" would be abandoned in case of future lack of use."
I doubt it... Last I heard the track was still in place, but out of use. The 5% grade is still staggeringly steep.
I'm guessing the rumer you heard was false...
I've read this somewhere but haven't been able to verify it.. anyone know if there's any truth to it?
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