NS Excursions:
Nov. 12, Business Train to Asheville
Nov. 13, Steam to Alcoa

Photos by Dave Ingles

The "business" of the Lexington Group's Knoxville annual meeting pretty much wrapped up on Friday the 11th, with Saturday occupied by an all-day trip on NS's business train to Asheville, NC, and back, and Sunday morning with a short steam trip down the Alcoa branch. allowing folks to disperse toward home on Sunday afternoon. Here is an introductory photo of the business train returning from turning around in Asheville during our lunch stop. It sufficed for a photo of the F's since we had no run-bys on this trip.

Saturday was pretty much a clear day. Although this was a non-revenue trip, there were no run-bys nor open Dutch doors, so photography was kind of limited. We were bused east from downtown to Sevier Yard to board the train, which left the west end of the yard at 7:15 a.m., not long after dawn. Here are a couple of "mood shots" as we passed by Sevier Yard on what probably was the old "passenger main" on the south -- yard lights still on, and ballast cars still lettered Southern, perched above a hill covered with kudzu vines. Welcome to the south.

This slug set was working at the east end of the yard.

A favorite hangout, off and on (so as to let folks have their turn upstairs, as requested), was NS's full-length dome car, 24 Delaware, inherited from Conrail's business train and I believe of Santa Fe origin. This view looks back onto the train before we passed Morristown, which occurred at 8 a.m. Our entire 13-car consist behind F's 4270-4276-4275-4271 was: 7 Pennsylvania; 12 Indiana; 11 Illinois; 3 Claytor Lake; 9 Alabama; 2 Carolina; 13 Georgia; 21 West Virginia; 24 Delaware; 26 New York; 28 Powhatan Arrow; 29 also Powhatan Arrow; 19 Kentucky; and 23 Buena Vista. The rear car is the theater-seating car; the front-end cars were mostly straight business cars; and you'll recognize the coaches and other cars from the Chattanooga trip. Our bunch camped out in the 28.

Here is the Morristown modern metal depot with SD40-2 parked by it.

A general view inside the dome's upper level, east of Morristown.

A token view to the rear of the train, on a curve.

This curve west of Newport, Tenn., about 8:40 a.m., offered the best view of the front of the train from on board when I was in the dome.

We paralleled the French Broad River a good bit of the way. i rode Southern's Carolina Special from Carlisle, S.C., thru Spartanburg, up Saluda Hill, and thru Asheville back to Knoxville on this route in 1966.

Down in the coaches, Rick Moser (right) visited with Steve Forrest, a long-time friend of mine from Memphis who's been a Southern and NS train dispatcher throughout most of his career. He originally worked at a crossing cabin at Kentucky St. in Memphis, then was a dispatcher on the Rat Hole at Somerset, Ky. When NS moved those jobs to Knoxville, Steve relocated to nearby Blaine. On another trip, Rick and I were able to visit with Steve in his office on the north side of Sevier Yard.

Alton Lanier, whom I first met in 1966 while at U.T., now is retired from a regulatory and airport career in Memphis; he stopped by to visit with Steve, Rick, and me.

TRAINS Editor Jim Wrinn, a North Carolinian, worked the train, too. Jim is on a first-name basis with Wick Moorman and, as an active board member at the N.C. Transportation Museum, was a key figure in the 2012 debut party of NS's 20 Heritage diesels.

Wick Moorman also came thru the train and greeted pretty much everybody.

We arrived in the east end of Asheville, near the old Biltmore station site (the downtown depot is decades gone -- in fact, Southern's Asheville Special that ran into the Amtrak era originated at Biltmore), at 11:30, and stopped right beside a number of tents set up for the luncheon service. The only negative aspect was that we were on the north, or shady, side of the train, hence not the best photos.

Here's our lunch bunch (from left): Chuck Weinstock, Brad Phillips of the San Fran Bay Area, yours truly, Rick Moser, and Pete and Kathy Stonitsch.

The "Kalmbach table," well two of 'em anyway, Kevin Keefe, TRAINS publisher, and Jim Wrinn, TRAINS editor.

As we dined, the train went east to be turned on a wye.

Photo lines were organized for the train's return, at 12:40.

This is the only time during Lexington I saw friends Chris and Rita Burger of Russiaville, Ind. He was in our group in the 1980s when he led C&NW's Wisconsin Division, based in suburban Butler, Wis.; he later was a Division Supt. in the Twin Cities and then moved up to HQ in Chicago. We have kept in touch.

We left the yard at 1:35, and soon passed these units by the remnant of the Asheville roundhouse.

We're back along the French Broad River west of Asheville.

My last photo of the day was this coal tower, surviving a half century after Southern dieselized, west of Newport, Tenn., which we spotted in the morning and amazingly, remembered on the return trip. We passed Newport at 4:03, Morristown at 4:39, and arrived back in Sevier Yard at 5:25 to bus back to the hotel, after which several of us that rode went to dinner in Rick's van.

For Sunday, Nov. 13, the finale of the Lexington Group meeting was a short morning steam trip from Knoxville south 15 miles to Alcoa, Tenn.; this was the only line out of the city I hadn't ridden, although I missed a 1975 NRHS convention excursion north to Middlesboro, Ky., an all-day steam trip that was a slow ride in hot weather that returned quite late in the evening. For this Alcoa trip, NS did an elaborate staging scheme. K&HR's 2-8-0 Southern 154 was pointed west in Knoxville and hauled us south to Alcoa, where TVRM's 2-8-0 630, pointed north, had been towed by a diesel to pull us back north into Knoxville. Unfortunately there were no photo stops, so we were never off the train, but we got some nice photos in Knoxville at the boarding point across the main line from the old SOU passenger station, still in non-rail business use and nicely preserved, with a local NRHS chapter's collection of passenger cars out front. NS's business train had come in from Sevier Yard during the night and been weed, and was parked beside our boarding area.

Before boarding, while making photos of 154, the sun even popped out.

Few of the NS business train cars were open, or in sunlight, for good photos, but I did get this executive sleeper, named for my home state, in nice sunlight.

A close-up of 154's cab reveals how small those working spaces were on late 19th century locomotives. That this locomotive was in a park for so many years, is a testament to what dedicated steam preservationists can accomplish! Who would've envisioned this little locomotive -- which I was unaware of during my year in Knoxville -- would ever steam again. Hats off to Pete Claussen and his work crew!

The line branches off to the left right west of our departure point, and this view of our Hilton Hotel looks east into downtown.

We crossed the Tennessee River bridge seen in the photos in the G&O trip file from the riverfront line of K&HR, and this view looks west off that bridge at UofT's Neyland (football) Stadium.

With no Dutch-doors open, this suffices for the lone "from the train view." After we crossed the bridge, K&HR SW1500 1123 was added to our rear end to help push us up out of the river valley; this stop was 9:48-9:54. SOU and NS had not to our knowledge ever operated a public excursion on this branch, which serves the big Alcoa plant at the town of that name, also located on CSX's ex-L&N main to Atlanta.

I snapped this shot thru a coach window of an Alcoa switcher as we neared the spot, with a run-around track, where we would swap locomotives; it's about 1120 a.m. -- this was a leisurely trip, interrupted by a 23-minute stop at 10:20 by some steaming problem with the 154. I'm not sure what this Alcoa switcher diesel type is, but in the old days, the common carrier Alcoa Terminal in Alcoa had a couple of Alco switchers and leased an L&N SW1.

After the engine swap, we left Alcoa at 11:57 a.m., and I took no photos until we were back in Knoxville, crossing the river bridge. This photo looks east to downtown, with the G&O's K&HR tourist train, Three Rivers Rambler, consist at its riverfront boarding point.

After disembarking after our 12:52 p.m. arrival, we walked forward for some shots of the NS business train juxtaposed with our Alcoa excursion train. No more sunlight, but it was a unique photo opportunity not to be missed! Behind the trains, the roof of the old SOU Knoxville depot is visible.

With this close-up of F unit 4271, we say a big Thank You to Norfolk Southern for helping put on probably the best, and most well-attended, Lexington Group in Transportation History meeting, ever. After making these photos, Rick, Chuck, and I walked to our car (parking lots were available here to us, since it was Sunday) and headed north pretty much non-stop on a cloudy day with no photos. We spent the night in Louisville, dropped Chuck at the airport for a flight home, and then meandered through Indiana on our way home. Those few photos will be in the final file in this series.

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