Turning the 3985 around on the Clinchfield

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Regarding the last Challenger to run on the Clinchfield, the 3985 had been turned into the 676 prior to arrival on Clinchfield territory. We have that on tape/DVD. She looked absolutely marvelous! The turnout was amazingly huge!

For this discussion, however, I will refer to the challenger in question as 3985. Also, I cannot be sure at which times Steve Lee was in the cab or back on the ground eyeballing the tender's very tender wheels on those very tender rails. He may have been closely watching the tender wheels the entire time the tender was on the wye?

Regarding the 3985's visit to the Clinchfield back in 1992 for the 50th running of the Santa Claus Special… It ran into big-time problems trying to turn around. In fact, it never turned around while it was in the state of Tennessee.

Yes… The 3985 had big trouble taking a smallish wye in downtown Kingsport while trying to reverse direction. It actually derailed three times… that is, the tender did ... we have that all on tape/DVD, too … And 3985 never was successful at turning around on the eye.

UP had specified the required wye size/turn degrees, etc. Whether CSX/Clinchfield had the correct size wye or not, it was hard to say. No one for either the UP or CSX was very happy with this problem and its lousy NON-resolution.

Steve Lee backed her in the wye tender first from the south ... into the Y and halfway through the wye curve the rear wheels of the tender derailed. The 3985 pulled forward and with a few small pieces of lumber and a few old railroad pros she was back on the track right away. 

[I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this little bit of old-timey railroading… Getting the tender back on the track… And those old Clinchfield & UP heads performing like they still did it every day.

Lee & crew chatted it over and decided to fully release all the brake air on on the tender hoping to give the wheels a little more play. Steve backed her up again and she went a little farther the second time before she derailed again. A little more lumber and a tug forward toward the mainline and she was back on the track again. 

Was the third time a charm?

I thought sure that they had reached the decision that practically automatically was going to work… They were going to bring in a DIESEL engine to help out. 

Not only did they bring in a diesel engine, but they brought in a GP30. What else could be better to make things go smoothly than a GP30. I thought that was a great decision and perhaps that someone on high had intervened.

The GP30 backed up the other wye leg and then moved forward to couple onto the back of the tender. Slowly… Very slowly… The GP 30 pulled the tender and 3985 backward… Further… Slooooowly ...  Farther… And then off the track again. Bummmmmmer! 

Steve called it off at that point. She'd back all the way to Shelby, Kentucky and CSX diesels would run the CSX Santa Train Special cars up to Shelby, too.

Well… You ask… How did they ever turn 3985 around?

To shorten this nasty story, the entire time the 3985 was on Clinchfield rails she made only one full 180° turn. The rest of the times when she went north she went backwards ... 100 miles or so to Shelby.

For the Santa Train she was able to pull all the way from Shelby, Kentucky down to Kingsport TN with 3985 going forward and Steve Lee grinning one of those big wide ones all the way. He was loving it! He even stop the entire Santa train right on top of the 186 foot high Coppercreek Trussell. We stayed there a good while (I say we because I was on the observation car deck with Scott Jesse and Santa Claus ... And yes… Santa threw lots of stuff to the railfans directly below) ... Mostly Moon Pies ... And Steve Doused them with warm locomotive water). It likely was the most fabulous still life display of a smoking, steaming Challenger ever. Oh yeah, I believe Steve yanked on the whistle maybe half a dozen or 25 times!

The Santa Train was on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Then on the next day 3985 backed all the way to St. Paul Virginia and shortly thereafter she joined her train and pulled the CSX employee special back down to Kingsport with the engine in forward gear the whole way. 

It rained like hell most of that day! Twas a day fit for  the heartiest of Fairweather Railfans… Only! Or was it hardiest?

On Monday when she said good riddance to the Clinchfield, 3985 backed all the way to St. Paul again and because the old N&W and Clinchfield wye (still are) joined by a wye at St. Paul, 3985 was able to turn her nose in a northward direction for the first and only time on the Clinchfield.

[Question, did that paragraph keep me on N&W subject? I did mention N&W.]

Vamanos! She coupled up to her passenger train and was headed up north and west toward St. Louis and back out to UP country.

I'm not very well versed on the details of the mechanical problems Clinchfield had with the Challengers when they first arrived on the property back in the 40s, but I am well aware that the Challengers from Rio Grande/UP were bigger than the Challengers the Clinchfield had been running.

On the very first southbound run from Erwin with one of the new Challengers leading a freight train or coal run, it got about halfway to Altapass when it went through its first tunnel ,,, AND ... scraped up the sides of the tunnel and the sides of the locomotive. That tunnel was on a rather snug, tight curve and immediately the Clinchfield had to put a shoofly track around the tunnel (actually the shoofly already existed due to previous problems in the tunnel) so they could make it large enough for the new Challengers to fit through.

Also… this is for you Challenger fans only… One of these 40s' Challengers pulled a Clinchfield passenger train one day. The Clinchfield had gotten rid of its steam passenger locomotives by which they pulled the daily passenger trains, and replaced them with an L&N passenger type F unit. One day the F was ill and they needed to call upon an engine that was qualified to pull the passenger train… And one of these challengers was the lucky loco. So far… I have not found even a hint that anybody took a picture of the last great steam era passenger train on the Clinchfield.

Let's see… Maybe two old passenger cars… I'll bet they had trouble getting that train up those rugged Clinchfield mountains. Think they had to call for a pusher?

Oh yes… One more note about the 3985 on the Clinchfield. Call out the derrick train…

On her way southward into Clinchfield country, south of Dante VA and north of St. Paul, she took a 14-degree curve thru a passing siding. Yep… She sure did!

Much to everyone's chagrin, the 3985 sideswiped an empty coal car with the left front steps of the running board. 

The train came to a quick stop, everyone was a little bit shaken up, but all was OK. The only damage was the left front of the running board, which the CSX maintenance folks from Erwin came up to Kingsport and repaired that night. 

She just had to LOOK AND FEEL HER VERY BEST for the Santa Train two days later. And, she sure did with that big old CLINCHFIELD 676 on her sides. Make no mistake, the natives just loved it.

Note: if you think 14° is tight for a steam Era passing siding, understand that the Clinchfield never put that siding in until it was totally dieselized and by then a 14° curve with tighter space between the tracks was OK. I am clear that CSX did a great job checking the rails of the Clinchfield before the 3985 showed up, and missing that aspect was almost OK ... At least somewhat understandable. Simply put, no one thought about it being a post-steam, diesel era passing siding. ... Not even the civil engineers.

And frankly, the empty coal car the 3985 hit must have been leaning inward because the runningboard didn't hit any other car in the coal train in the coal train was not knocked off the track. We will never know.

For the rest of the Challenger's Clinchfield visit, every passing siding was made absolutely naked ... void of everything … No cars, no engines, no nothing when the Challenger roared past.

Oh yeah… A couple of those Rio/UP Challengers -- because they were on a long-term lease -- set around the Clinchfield Erwin yard for many years and I believe it was not until the 70s that they were scrapped. That would've been a nice save!

That's all folks… All Hail the 767 ... Bob

Bob Loehne 
7028 Tallent Court 
Sherrills Ford, NC 28673
800-611-1218
oezbob at aol.com

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