Saluda, NC at the top of NS Saluda Grade

Well, now everybody knows where I was last Saturday. It's interesting how the tracks just drop off right out of town, as Mike and Bruce pointed out in their video from 2001. You can see the tracks turn downhill at about 1:30 on the video. I'd love to walk down the grade but it's a little too long for me. Sidebar: Interstate 26 on Saluda Mountain is a 6% grade three miles long. If you don't hit your brakes every now and then on the way down your vehicle will get away from you in a hurry. On the final stretch to the bottom I was coasting at 75 mph.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Norfolk
• Southern
• Railroad
• trains
• railfan

[mkl62]

In October 1972, I rode the Clinchfield from Spartanburg to Erwin, TN.

[boardman49]

@mkl62 Wish I could take a trip like that.

[mkl62]

@boardman49 Does the old Clinchfield still run that excursion? On November 1, 1972, the Seaboard Coastline and the Louisville & Nashville merged to become The Family Lines. The Clinchfield was 1 of 4 railroads absorbed. The others were the Atlanta & West Point, Georgia, and Western Railway of Alabama.

[boardman49]

@mkl62 Sorry to say no more excursions on the old Clinchfield. After CSX took over that was the end of the excursions with one notable exception; in about 1992 CSX allowed Union Pacific steam locomotive 3985 to make a run on the old Clinchfield to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Christmas Train.

[spacewalker1551]

I used to travel up from Spartanburg, S.C. with my Grandparents and watch the trains there. What an operation. Matt from The History Ch. would have loved it. What ever happened to his show anyway?

[boardman49]

I really don't know what they did with his show.

[k4ldh]

I can remember when those tracks in front of Pace's were very busy

thanks for posting this

[Rtchugg]

They could do it! Need some helpers but they could do it!

[CSX2665]

@xxxDeath9572xxx it sux that this can't b used anymore

[xxxDeath9572xxx]

I found that out recently.

[CSX2665]

@xxxDeath9572xxx no i'm afraid these tracks r now closed due to its steepness & thus very dangerous for trains as a runaway can easily occur.

[xxxDeath9572xxx]

is this line even in use today?

[mkl62]

@boardman49 I hate that. I loved that trip. I remember 2 of my cousins ate so many candy apples and got sick as dogs. Sadly one of them died on Dec. 27, 2007, succombing to Lou Gehrig's Disease. There is one steam excursion in SC: The Rockton & Rion in Fairfield County, a branch of the Norfolk Southern. I have also ridden the Best Friend of Charleston.