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Clinchfield Country by Steve King w dust jacket 1988 128 pages
Clinchfield Country by Steve King
Hard Cover with dust jacket (HAS some damage) Personal library sticker on first blank page
Copyright 1988
128 pages
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements 4
Foreword 5
Introduction 6
I A Clinchfield History 8
II Dante and the Elkhorn Extension 13
III Train Operations 32
IV Clinchfield Diesel Power 71
V Along the Way 88
VI Gone But Not Forgotten 122
Clinchfield Diesel Roster124
Clinchfield Station List126
Clinchfield Tunnel List 127
SECOND MOSS COMIN' HOME
Fog - it's always there, hanging low in the hills, even on a clear night like tonight. Dampness, too, cold and penetrating during winter, but warm and almost comfortable on this summer night.
There are hundreds of signals on the railroad. They direct the ebb and flow of traffic. Signal 32.4 guards the south end of Trammel Siding and the entrance to Sandy Ridge Tunnel. A flick of a lever, the push of a button over miles of wire goes a code. A special code. The CTC machine is talking, and with unfailing obedience the signal responds. Back over the same line goes a returning code - the slave responding to the master. The dispatcher leans back in his chair, his part of the job done. Thirty-two point four pushes out a green beam of light into the mist and waits.
You wait, too, shifting from one foot to the other: waiting, waiting, waiting. Cocking your head a bit, you hear the first telltale sounds of an approaching train. You think that you do, anyway, but the mind sometimes does play tricks. Like a detective comparing fingerprints, the ear and the brain talk back and forth to each other. Finally, a match! "Train," you say aloud, realizing as you do that there's no one else to hear.
For a while the sound grows louder, then all is silent. Martin Tunnel No. 20. Barn! Out the other side and much louder now. Louder and closer, the sound is bouncing off the hills. There's a light now, glowing over the hill. It's bright, then dim, feeling its way through the night toward you. But always the sound - the sound of machines at work sounds of all kinds, some you can hear and some you can only feel.
Lights shine on the rail. It's here! The dust in the running lights tell the tale; he's gettin' down with a tonnage train. Wafting into the light is the dust from the sanders. Thirty-six wheels grind up the sand. A short blap on the horn for the crossing, as if anybody didn't already know a train was here - there are three SD4Os and 8000 tons of Virginia coal in tow. It takes all 9000 horsepower to keep it stepping on a grade where the front is fully 80 feet higher than the rear. With the units alongside you now, the crew flicks the lights to acknowledge your highball, "Dish" Dishman and "Bill Bob" call out: "Send us a copy of the picture - if you get anything in the dark!"
The roar is gone, as if it were covered by a blanket. The headlight has found a hole in the mountain, climbed its own beam and has been swallowed up. Still, the rumble comes through. Even the mountain can't yet swallow all of the noise. And behind comes the coal: clunk-clunk, clunk-clunk, clunk-clunk, broken occasionally by the hissing of an air hose.
There's something warm and friendly about a caboose - the glowing lamp in the window, the conductor working with the bills, the finality of the markers. A piercing spotlight shines from the rear as a lookout for signs of trouble: dragging equipment or wheels on the ground. Then, even that is gone. The mountain has finally swallowed everything. Thirty-two point four remains to tell of the train's passing, a red beam reaching out into the fog. It's a warning to any other train that might dare to pass without authority.
"Dante Yard, Second Moss on the hill comin'home."
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