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Riding the Hook and Eye

On Friday, October 30 Irene and I drove 97 miles to Etowah, TN, to ride the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum’s (TVRM) Hiwassee Loop excursion train. It boards just south of Etowah at the Hiwassee Ocoee State Park and travels east through the Hiwassee Gorge and the famous spiral loops to Farner, TN. George has heard of and known about the hook and eye route as it was sometimes called for years, but we just found out that an excursion train is operating on it. The “eye” in the name is obvious when you see how the train loops back through the trestle it just crossed like the threading of a needle, and “hook” came from a pair of sharp curves near Talking Rock, GA.

Anyone who has driven up US 411 from Cartersville, GA, to Knoxville, TN, would have noticed that a rail line follows the road all the way. Actually the road was built after the rail line, so it is the road that is following the rail line which was built in the early 1890’s. Today the line is owned by CSX railroad but was preceded by a long pedigree of railroads that went bankrupt or merged. The original plan was to connect Cincinnati with Atlanta. South of Etowah, TN, the line went through the Hiwassee River Gorge where construction was difficult and the narrow gorge required the line to be constructed using hand tools, black powder, and mules. At the east end of the gorge a new obstacle was encountered in the form of Bald Mountain where a 200 ft. climb was necessary to get the line out of the gorge. Originally Bald Mountain was ascended using a set of steep switchbacks, but later they proved to be an operational nightmare. The railroad then brought in an engineer from the Louisville and Nashville railroad who proposed to reduce the grade by constructing a spiral loop. Of note there are five of these loops in the United States, but the Bald Mountain loop is said to be the most spectacular because it encircles the mountain almost twice during the ascent.

The Hiwassee Gorge route got heavy use when copper ore was discovered in Copper Hill, TN. Trains hauled the copper and the sulfuric acid used to process it. South of Copper Hill the line continued on to Murphy, NC, Blue Ridge, GA, and Ellijay, GA. Somewhere between Blue Ridge and Ellijay George’s father saw his first train from atop a mountain ridge about two miles from the family home. He was born in 1900. From Ellijay the line continued to Talking Rock, Jasper, Tate, Canton, and Marietta. In later years the Louisville and Nashville Railroad took over the line, and despite improvements, the extremely curvy mountainous route offered too many operational challenges for the L&N’s main line operation between Cincinnati and Atlanta. So, in 1906 a new straighter, faster line was opened from Etowah to Atlanta. It immediately became known as the “new line,” and the Hiwassee Gorge line became known as the “old line.” The new line is the route that is paralleled by U.S. 411 as mentioned earlier. From Etowah it routed straight down to Tennga, GA, and on to Chatsworth, Fairmount, and Cartersville. The L&N also at this time moved their Atlanta Division to Etowah and built shops there. Today there are still multiple tracks at Etowah, and its prior prominence also accounts for the large station that still serves the community as a railroad museum and community center.

Copper mining kept the old line profitable during the 20^th century, but the closing of the mines in the 1960’s foreshadowed the abandonment of the old line by the CSX. George had relatives in Copperhill, and he remembers visiting as a child and seeing the stark, barren hillsides stripped bare of vegetation and trees by sulfuric acid fumes. All of that has been cleaned up and new trees planted.

The CSX received permission from the FCC to abandon the line in 2001. Local interests and rail buffs under the banner “Old Line Coalition” worked to save the line with the idea of operating an excursion train, but CSX placed a 1.6 million dollar price tag on the line making the future look bleak. The successor to the Copperhill mining company that was designated to head up the restoration of the copper basin saw the significance of the line to the community and offered to carry a mortgage until the Tennessee Overhill Heritage Association could take over. The Overhill Association is a local multi-county nonprofit promotional agency for the region.

The challenge still remained as to who would operate the excursion train. The end of the CSX era resulted in poor maintenance and the need for expensive repairs. At about this time the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) decided to upgrade their power generating turbines. They have a hydro-electric generating facility called Apalachia (yes, spelled with one p) about midway in the gorge and also the dam supplying it about 8 miles away. The water is piped to the generating plant.

The rail line was the obvious way to deliver the transformers, so TVA agreed to rehab the line east into the gorge as far as the powerhouse, a distance of 13 miles. Seizing the opportunity, the TVRM started operating an excursion train as far as the powerhouse in 2004. These trips were very popular. Not long afterward, the Overhill Association was approached to haul an iron ore byproduct of copper smelting from Copper Hill to Etowah. The shipments were forwarded by CSX to an ocean port for export. This deal afforded the opportunity to rehab the old line all the way to Copper Hill, but the operation lasted only six months due to increasing shipping costs and less demand for the product.

So, at this point Tennessee Overhill owns a scenic rail line in good condition from the state park near the western entrance of the gorge to Copper Hill, and it has an amazing rail fan attraction in the spiral loop, so what to do with it? The answer was to partner with the TVRM who has been conducting rail excursions all over the southeast since 1963, and that is what we have today.  

The Park Car

There were several cars on the train with very interesting histories, but I want to focus on just one, the one that made this trip irresistible – the park car Algonquin Park. The park car is a beautiful beaver tailed dome sleeper/lounge that ran on the Canadian Pacific’s “Canadian” streamliner between Toronto and Vancouver. George fell in love with it in 1977 when he and Irene traveled across Canada on the Canadian National and the Canadian Pacific railways before VIA. It was on the tail end of the famous Canadian streamliner – you saw it in the movie “Silver Streak.”

The CP ordered 18 of these rare cars from the Budd Company in 1954 and most still operate on VIA today. These cars are named for Canadian provincial parks, thus the name. These cars had an observation lounge in the rear, a dome overhead, and bar below the dome, followed by a drawing room and three double bedrooms. This one was named the Algonquin Park. It was sold in 2004 to Mr. Bill Harmon of Saginaw, Michigan, who attempted to use it as a time share property. Owners would purchase a one week vacation interest in the “property,” and ride the rails. The company failed, but its website is still online: http://www.luxuryrailcarsales.com/ Mr. Harmon still owns the car but now leases it to the TVRM. George and Irene and friends rode in another park car in 2005 when they took a Via train from Banff to Prince Rupert Canada. So, another ride in it was irresistible once we found out it was only 97 miles away.

What to Look for in the Movie

First you will see pics of the quite large Etowah depot and grounds as well as interior pictures. Then on the train right away you will see us cross the Hiwassee River, and on the other side you will see a local river rafting company, then some track maintenance equipment followed by a road crossing and house. About half way into the gorge we come to the Apalachia power house where workers come out to greet the train. You will see the giant pipes coming down that bring the water from the dam 8 miles away. I did notice as we left the power house that one of the workers put a “frog” on one of the rails. A frog is a small clamp-on device intended to derail a train before it can do damage to something ahead. Security measures are now pretty tight in electric utility facilities, and I guess they want to make sure no runaway train crashes into the facilities. Next we cross Hwy 98 and then the Apalachia dam can barely be made out through the trees. Then comes the famous loop at Bald Mountain before we stop at a siding in Farner, TN, to couple the locomotive to the other end of the train for the return. When we get back to the Apalachia powerhouse, you will see a TVA helicopter that has landed.

PLAY MOVIE