Affiliated Short LInes

[NW Mailing List]

Some recent mention of the Marion and Rye Valley RR on the Mailing List induced me to sent this message for whatever interest it may have to someone who doesn't know about these items already.

In the course of looking through N&W Ry. Annual Reports (available on a CD through the NWHS Commissary) I found it interesting that the N&W had invested in a couple of Southwest Virginia short lines thru bond ownership, i. e., the Marion and Rye Valley RR, which connected to the N&W's Bristol line at Marion, VA, and the Beaver Dam RR, which connected to the N&W's Abingdon Branch through an N&W branch out of Damascus, VA.

The attached picture of a Beaver Dam RR tunnel through Backbone Rock now used by Tennessee Highway 133 is interesting.  The story is that after the tunnel was completed and the track laid, it was discovered that the locomotive's smokestack would not clear the roof of the tunnel, so the roof had to be hand chiseled for clearance.  The result seems to be evident in the picture.

Gordon Hamilton

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/attachments/20071204/9f7b8e3e/attachment-0001.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: zAT6-Backbone%5B1%5D.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 70745 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/attachments/20071204/9f7b8e3e/attachment-0001.jpg>