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Clinchfield No 1 Tennessee’s Legendary Steam Engine By Mark A. Stevens and A J A
Clinchfield No 1 Tennessees Legendary Steam Engine By Mark A. Stevens and A J ALF Peoples
Softbound
156 pages
Copyright 2014
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1. In the Beginning
2. Relief Train for the Johnstown Flood of 1889
3. By the Numbers: More Early History
4. Forlorn and Forgotten: The Town of Erwin Years
5. The Silver-Haired Man with the Million-Dollar Smile
6. Rebuilding, Remodeling and the True Making of the Clinchfield No. 1
7. The Hatcher Brothers
8. All Aboard! for the No. l's Excursions
9. The Clinchfield Special
10. The Invaluable P.O. Likens
11. Public Relations
12. "Disaster" on the Clinchfield
13. Howard Baker and Political Power Aboard the No. 1
14. Not So "Special": Santa Claus Sued
15. Extra-Special Clinchfield: To the Ocean and Down to Florida
16. Short Tales From the Rails
17. A Letter from No. 1
Epilogue
About the Authors
INTRODUCTION
Whistling its way merrily through the mountains along the tracks of the 277-
mile Clinchfield Railroad Compaq)), the famed Number One, a 4-6-0-type steam
locomotive built in 1882, warms the hearts of all who see and ride behind it. In
a day when almost all of the beautiful steam locomotives are all but memories,
here is one which, by all rights, should have long gone into a scrap pile. Yet, here
it is!...A locomotive that has defied time and convention to boil water and steam
mightily, giving pleasure to all who ride and watch. "Turn back, turn back, oh
time in thy flight." The Number One does just that for those who ride. William S. "Bill" Cannon
William S. "Bill" Cannon, an associate professor of computer science and mathematics at Presbyterian College cum press representative for the Clinchfield Railroad, wrote those words more than four decades ago, summing up nicely the story of the little engine called the Clinchfield No. 1. As with most things, there are stories behind the story, and that is certainly true with the No. 1. Even its name, while singular in title, defies. It may be the Clinchfield No. 1, but
mentough, independent railroaders-lovingly call it "Rosebud."
Clinchfield railroaders doted on their little engine and were proud of its many stories-that it was born in 1882 in the heartland of America; that it was a first-on-the-scene savior for victims of the 1889 Johnstown, Pennsylvania flood (the nation's worst disaster until 9/11); that it came to the Appalachian mountains to help build a railroad; and that, despite all odds, it became a survivor and a beloved symbol of accomplishment and downright pluckiness. In The Clinchfield No. 1: Tennessee's Legendary Steam Engine, we aim to tell some of the little engine's stories and those of the men who shaped, saved and, yes, lovThe locomotive was eighty-six years old before it found widespread adoration, garnering headlines in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Christian Science Monitor and Southern Living magazine, no less, as it puffed along as the nation's oldest operating steam engine in regular service. It was rebuilt from a woebegone pile of rust and rotten wood in the autumn of 1968 and served for the next eleven years as the pride of the Clinchfield, leading excursion trains to seven state capitals; through the Appalachian mountains of Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia and the Carolinas; over to the coast of the Atlantic Ocean; and even into downtown Tampa, Florida.
So why did the Erwin, Tennessee-based Clinchfield Railroad, which had discontinued passenger service and scrapped nearly every one of its vast fleet of steam locomotives by the mid-1950s to make room for diesels, opt to resurrect an era long gone?
There are many answers to that question, but the greatest of these may be loved it.
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