The East Tennessee & Western North Carolina, affectionately known as "The Tweetsie", was a most unusual line having both standard and narrow gauge lines on its system, which ran from Johnson City, Tennessee to Boone, North Carolina, a total of 65.3 miles, not including a 2.6 mile branch from Montezuma to Pineola. Although the standard gauge portion of the line survives to this day, the 3-foot gauge trackage was abandoned in 1950. As the train winds its way along 3-foot gauge line, we are guests in the caboose, and later on, in the cab of the little Baldwin engine. Winding through the Doe River Gorge, we're reminded of other narrow gauge lines much farther West - how lucky we are to have this record of this wonderful line. Although the narrow gauge portion of Tweetsie closed down in 1950, Engine number 12, Combine/Chair 15, and Excursion Car 11 are still in service as tourist hauler at Blowing Rock, North Carolina, also known as "The Tweetsie". As the Crew goes about their daily business, of setting out, picking up freight cars, and caring for the little Baldwin, we are treated to sights long forgotten in modern railroading. It is interesting to note from the company time table, dated October 15th 1883, that, quoting; "Through the gorge, and at all points where the rock or land slides are possible and in descending heavy grades trains must be kept under perfect control, and speeds must not exceed 6 miles per hour" end quote. And also the time table cautioned, "Trains must not under any circumstances run at a higher rate of speed than 15 miles per hour.". Have you ever seen a brakeman working his way over the tops of the cars with a brake club?
NOT THIS TIME The Shady Valley Railroad was founded in May of 1892 by Albert Jennings Wright. Wright was less of a businessman and more of a raving madman who tried to build the railroad himself singlehandedly. It sounds crazy, considering the railroad you saw earlier was a 31-mile long 3ft gauge line, however that is *not* how it began. Oddly enough it started as nothing but a single-tracked cog railway going up to one single iron ore mine. It didn't take long for Wright to hire extra hands to help build the line, and after tons of grueling work and lots of misuse of dynamite paired with environmental *and* structural damage, the Shady Valley was complete and made its first run up the track on May 4th, 1892... I didn't say *mountain*, I did in fact, say track. The first 10 feet of track. It broke. When things *did* get underway the Shady Valley *was* successful in hauling iron ore up and down the mountain until 1895. Mines kept popping up around the mountain region and asking right to 'do business'. Remembering all the lives lost, bullets spent and dynamite wasted, Wright proceeded to have a category 10 panic attack at the thought of building more track to the other mines. Instead of trying to extend his cog railway to the other mines, he asked the mining companies for some extra time, which he used by blowing up- Ahp- I mean, *carefully removing* the entire track. -# How the government never thought to capture and hang this guy for his excessive use of dynamite is a mystery even to me.. I mean, he makes Douglas MacArthur look like someone who would lay explosives carefully- He then began building 3-foot gauge track... More cleanly and with less chaos, in order to more easily navigate through the mountains. By the way, *do not* ask Wright where all the dynamite came from. By this point he'd gotten himself some self-respect and got a small office building, and then it started to become something in the form of a real railroad. He even bundled up money from the previous operations to purchase the Shady Valley's second locomotive. Although, it's often treated as the first since it was the first one with serious intentions in mind... With the construction of the narrow gauge line beginning in 1896, and new rolling stock arriving for engine number 2, the railroad set to work. In February of 1905, A. J. Wright made a gutsy decision to buy *three* 2-8-2 mikados from the Baldwin Locomotive Works, identical copies of the Class 125 mikados used on the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad at the time. This, is what most would call a very poor financial decision, as buying *three* large freight locomotives bumped the railroad a *little* too close to bankruptcy for Wright's comfort. His plan was to make an insane purchase and then *challenge* himself to make it back *with* his purchase, and.. It worked. As it turns out, the many mines along the railroad provided an assortment of commodities, mainly ores, that the Shady Valley made a lot of profit from. This included manganese, cobalt, iron and nickel. With manganese, cobalt and nickel being used in the production of various components in electrical circuitry, telephone and telegraph companies for example were a *surprisingly* large customer for this little backwoods railroad.
@ On October 16th 1950, Engine Number 11 whistled out of Elizabethton Tennessee, the melancholy of a last run, darkened the glory of a warm, bright Appalachian morning. As the Tiny Baldwin Ten Wheeler retraced the route traveled so many times before, she was turning the last page in the history of Narrow Gauge in the Blue Ridge. She was leaving behind a legacy to service to her neighbors, to whom she was a part of the family. A Trusting and reliable link to the outside. Tears would mark the passing of the beloved Narrow Gauge. But our purpose here is not to mourn, but to shake the grates in the firebox of our memories, to watch the Phoenix arise from the ashes. Yes in these remarkable films, we stir the reflections and echos of the long vanished trains in Doe River Gorge, On State Line Hill, and the Lush Valleys into Cranberry. The East Tennessee & Western North Carolina, a long name for a short road, ran from Johnson City, Tennessee to Cranberry, North Carolina, it was chartered and constructed to 3 foot gauge in the early 1880s to haul high grade Iron Ore from the mines at Cranberry to interchange with the Trunk Lines in Johnson City. The line ran North East to Elizabethton, later to become the Business center to sustain the ET&WNC after the Narrow Gauge became unprofitable. A Third Rail to Standard Gauge was added in the early years of this century. From Elizabethton the line turns towards the Southeast and parallels the Doe River nearly to North Carolina. This is Rugged Country, particularly in the gorge carved by the Doe River between Hampton and Blevins. Sharp curves, steep grades, bridges, and five tunnels mark this segment of the line. The Gorge is wild, and beautiful! Palisades rise hundreds of feet above the river, and the railroad was built on ledges blasted from solid rock. After leaving the gorge the road passes a series of small communities as it digs in for the 4% grades up "State Line Hill" after slipping across the border into North Carolina, the tracks turn southward and reach their destination at Cranberry, 35 miles from Johnson City. Other lines tapped into the ET&WNC's success, in particular the Linville River Railway was constructed from a connection at Cranberry, 12 miles South to Pineola for lumber traffic from a W.M. Ritter Sawmill. The ET purchased the Linville River in 1913, Improved, and extended the track North to Shulls Mills to gain the business of another sawmill, in 1919 the final extension was made to Boone 66 miles from Johnson City. The two lines operated to a common time table and for all practical purposes were one as the ET in 1940 however, heavy flooding from a hurricane seriously damaged the Linville River, the cost to repair was beyond economic reason, so the ICC authorized abandonment beyond Cranberry, the ET was back to it's original configuration, passenger service ended in 1940 as the viability of the Narrow Gauge waned, however with the coming of the war, new life was breathed into the little line. The war board reinstituted passenger between Cranberry, and Elizabethton to carry shift workers to the bustling defense plants. peace quickly brought an end to this service, and the Narrow Gauge was able to hold on for only five more years. But the "Tweetsie" was still busy when these films were shot. So Let's go back to the war years of the East Tennessee & Western North Carolina Railroad
This is such a beautiful map you've made. With a few adjustments and some civil war assets on the download station, could easily set up some Civil War train sessions.
I didn't make the map. The original was made by Trainman7616, I only made little changes. Although it does look basically identical to the scenery seen around this railroad's territory in real life.
this route engine and stock look awsome i completely understand why you keep your stuff private but man i'd love to see this kind of stuff as not alot of NG in train simulator public atm keep up the good work
Pal, that caboose that 13 shoves against must be made of the thickest plot armor and protected from up on high. Otherwise, what a neat video and I would love to see more.
@@Lv-sl3rm I was gonna actually mention that lmao. SVRR's cabeese are reinforced heavily JUST for Barracuda. wasn't the craziest thing they did. They rebuilt a whole section of track where she most often ran because the original rails were too light to handle her weight and she destroyed them quickly
SVRR was pretty distant from the Southern, deep in the middle of bumblefuck nowhere. A single ET&WNC branch south of Mountain City was their only connection to the outside world.
The sound department of content creation is where my care runs dry. I just threw the first thing I had on and called it a day, lmao Edit; I'm not even sure if Trainz supports that even, one driver set would have to be a dummy to cut the chuffs in half, but that would mean it'd functionally lose that driver set entirely, making it perform like a 2-6-4 with an oversized boiler Gotta love this cruddy game, lmao
“By 1950 SVRR Number 13 “Burracuda” Had Been Put On the Logging Spurs and was Sidelined By 1960” “Today She can Be Found In the Rusty Sidings just North Of Shady Valley” “While She May Have Seen Better days there have been long term plans to restore her to operating condition” “But She Will Always Be Remembered As Shady Valley Railroad Number 13 Burracuda”-documentary narrator 1984
@@thatredfokkerbarracuda died in 1947 while her controls are broken and it crashed in a sharp curve and exploded, she is damaged beyond repair and scrapped.
Hey, soooo, very much unrelated, but I can't seem to find your profile on a... _certain site_ anymore. Did you get rid of it? _Completely understandable, if so_
No progress was really being made on projects at the time, and I wasn't on there for anything else, so I just dipped. I have a habit of just nuking things when they collect even a little bit of dust. It wasn't all that necessary in the first place, I just never liked YT's 'community' tab, and I just wanted something cleaner to post WIP stuff on. But tbh, the community tab will do, since I'm not as focused on models as I used to be.
@@thatredfokker Ah, understood. Though I'm gonna miss the stuff that was there(like Barracuda running from Virtual Insanity, and being pulled backwards down the hill, steam siren screaming XD)
@@thatredfokker yup...perhaps, if you still have them on your computer, you could repost them in the Community tab? or maybe compile them all in a YT video? or maybe... _maybe even use the new alternative to Twi-_ er, I mean, *_"X"_* 🙄 Have you heard of BlueSky?(it's basically Twitter, _but actually better,_ or so I've heard)
@@Railman1225 Eh these days I steer away from social media platforms besides discord and YT. Probably will just dump them into a video at some point lmao
please keep giving Barracuda special attention, because that is hands-down my favorite engine on the whole roster. I love giant, articulated beasts
The East Tennessee & Western North Carolina, affectionately known as "The Tweetsie", was a most unusual line having both standard and narrow gauge lines on its system, which ran from Johnson City, Tennessee to Boone, North Carolina, a total of 65.3 miles, not including a 2.6 mile branch from Montezuma to Pineola. Although the standard gauge portion of the line survives to this day, the 3-foot gauge trackage was abandoned in 1950. As the train winds its way along 3-foot gauge line, we are guests in the caboose, and later on, in the cab of the little Baldwin engine. Winding through the Doe River Gorge, we're reminded of other narrow gauge lines much farther West - how lucky we are to have this record of this wonderful line. Although the narrow gauge portion of Tweetsie closed down in 1950, Engine number 12, Combine/Chair 15, and Excursion Car 11 are still in service as tourist hauler at Blowing Rock, North Carolina, also known as "The Tweetsie". As the Crew goes about their daily business, of setting out, picking up freight cars, and caring for the little Baldwin, we are treated to sights long forgotten in modern railroading. It is interesting to note from the company time table, dated October 15th 1883, that, quoting; "Through the gorge, and at all points where the rock or land slides are possible and in descending heavy grades trains must be kept under perfect control, and speeds must not exceed 6 miles per hour" end quote. And also the time table cautioned, "Trains must not under any circumstances run at a higher rate of speed than 15 miles per hour.". Have you ever seen a brakeman working his way over the tops of the cars with a brake club?
NOT THIS TIME
The Shady Valley Railroad was founded in May of 1892 by Albert Jennings Wright. Wright was less of a businessman and more of a raving madman who tried to build the railroad himself singlehandedly. It sounds crazy, considering the railroad you saw earlier was a 31-mile long 3ft gauge line, however that is *not* how it began. Oddly enough it started as nothing but a single-tracked cog railway going up to one single iron ore mine. It didn't take long for Wright to hire extra hands to help build the line, and after tons of grueling work and lots of misuse of dynamite paired with environmental *and* structural damage, the Shady Valley was complete and made its first run up the track on May 4th, 1892... I didn't say *mountain*, I did in fact, say track. The first 10 feet of track. It broke.
When things *did* get underway the Shady Valley *was* successful in hauling iron ore up and down the mountain until 1895. Mines kept popping up around the mountain region and asking right to 'do business'.
Remembering all the lives lost, bullets spent and dynamite wasted, Wright proceeded to have a category 10 panic attack at the thought of building more track to the other mines.
Instead of trying to extend his cog railway to the other mines, he asked the mining companies for some extra time, which he used by blowing up- Ahp- I mean, *carefully removing* the entire track.
-# How the government never thought to capture and hang this guy for his excessive use of dynamite is a mystery even to me.. I mean, he makes Douglas MacArthur look like someone who would lay explosives carefully-
He then began building 3-foot gauge track... More cleanly and with less chaos, in order to more easily navigate through the mountains.
By the way, *do not* ask Wright where all the dynamite came from.
By this point he'd gotten himself some self-respect and got a small office building, and then it started to become something in the form of a real railroad. He even bundled up money from the previous operations to purchase the Shady Valley's second locomotive. Although, it's often treated as the first since it was the first one with serious intentions in mind...
With the construction of the narrow gauge line beginning in 1896, and new rolling stock arriving for engine number 2, the railroad set to work.
In February of 1905, A. J. Wright made a gutsy decision to buy *three* 2-8-2 mikados from the Baldwin Locomotive Works, identical copies of the Class 125 mikados used on the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad at the time. This, is what most would call a very poor financial decision, as buying *three* large freight locomotives bumped the railroad a *little* too close to bankruptcy for Wright's comfort. His plan was to make an insane purchase and then *challenge* himself to make it back *with* his purchase, and.. It worked. As it turns out, the many mines along the railroad provided an assortment of commodities, mainly ores, that the Shady Valley made a lot of profit from. This included manganese, cobalt, iron and nickel. With manganese, cobalt and nickel being used in the production of various components in electrical circuitry, telephone and telegraph companies for example were a *surprisingly* large customer for this little backwoods railroad.
@ On October 16th 1950, Engine Number 11 whistled out of Elizabethton Tennessee, the melancholy of a last run, darkened the glory of a warm, bright Appalachian morning. As the Tiny Baldwin Ten Wheeler retraced the route traveled so many times before, she was turning the last page in the history of Narrow Gauge in the Blue Ridge. She was leaving behind a legacy to service to her neighbors, to whom she was a part of the family. A Trusting and reliable link to the outside. Tears would mark the passing of the beloved Narrow Gauge. But our purpose here is not to mourn, but to shake the grates in the firebox of our memories, to watch the Phoenix arise from the ashes. Yes in these remarkable films, we stir the reflections and echos of the long vanished trains in Doe River Gorge, On State Line Hill, and the Lush Valleys into Cranberry. The East Tennessee & Western North Carolina, a long name for a short road, ran from Johnson City, Tennessee to Cranberry, North Carolina, it was chartered and constructed to 3 foot gauge in the early 1880s to haul high grade Iron Ore from the mines at Cranberry to interchange with the Trunk Lines in Johnson City. The line ran North East to Elizabethton, later to become the Business center to sustain the ET&WNC after the Narrow Gauge became unprofitable. A Third Rail to Standard Gauge was added in the early years of this century. From Elizabethton the line turns towards the Southeast and parallels the Doe River nearly to North Carolina. This is Rugged Country, particularly in the gorge carved by the Doe River between Hampton and Blevins. Sharp curves, steep grades, bridges, and five tunnels mark this segment of the line. The Gorge is wild, and beautiful! Palisades rise hundreds of feet above the river, and the railroad was built on ledges blasted from solid rock. After leaving the gorge the road passes a series of small communities as it digs in for the 4% grades up "State Line Hill" after slipping across the border into North Carolina, the tracks turn southward and reach their destination at Cranberry, 35 miles from Johnson City. Other lines tapped into the ET&WNC's success, in particular the Linville River Railway was constructed from a connection at Cranberry, 12 miles South to Pineola for lumber traffic from a W.M. Ritter Sawmill. The ET purchased the Linville River in 1913, Improved, and extended the track North to Shulls Mills to gain the business of another sawmill, in 1919 the final extension was made to Boone 66 miles from Johnson City. The two lines operated to a common time table and for all practical purposes were one as the ET in 1940 however, heavy flooding from a hurricane seriously damaged the Linville River, the cost to repair was beyond economic reason, so the ICC authorized abandonment beyond Cranberry, the ET was back to it's original configuration, passenger service ended in 1940 as the viability of the Narrow Gauge waned, however with the coming of the war, new life was breathed into the little line. The war board reinstituted passenger between Cranberry, and Elizabethton to carry shift workers to the bustling defense plants. peace quickly brought an end to this service, and the Narrow Gauge was able to hold on for only five more years. But the "Tweetsie" was still busy when these films were shot. So Let's go back to the war years of the East Tennessee & Western North Carolina Railroad
I love the idea of a 3ft to 3ft interchange, it's so cool to see that.
This is such a beautiful map you've made. With a few adjustments and some civil war assets on the download station, could easily set up some Civil War train sessions.
I didn't make the map. The original was made by Trainman7616, I only made little changes. Although it does look basically identical to the scenery seen around this railroad's territory in real life.
Man, I wish this route, and the rolling stock were available for the public to use. It looks amazing,
Don’t want the trainz community to butcher them tho
@@LRF152 That is a very fair point. I am legit te same way with my projects in TS Classic.
It’s interesting that ET&WNC interchange with the shady valley railroad 4:57
this route engine and stock look awsome i completely understand why you keep your stuff private but man i'd love to see this kind of stuff as not alot of NG in train simulator public atm keep up the good work
Yaaaaas more shady valley
Pal, that caboose that 13 shoves against must be made of the thickest plot armor and protected from up on high. Otherwise, what a neat video and I would love to see more.
N&W would like to know your location
If that scene was realistic, we’d have an American adaptation of “brake van”
@@thatredfokker Tell them I'm at One Penn Center, 1617 Pennsylvania Boulevard, Philadelphia PA
Custom cabooses with heavy as fuck frames for shoving say hi.
@@Lv-sl3rm I was gonna actually mention that lmao. SVRR's cabeese are reinforced heavily JUST for Barracuda. wasn't the craziest thing they did. They rebuilt a whole section of track where she most often ran because the original rails were too light to handle her weight and she destroyed them quickly
Imagine if he decides to model this railroad in HOn3
Didn't expect them to interchange with the Tweetsie. And my god, what are they feeding 6 that thing's burning darker than my Grandma's wood stove.
I actually don't know why 6's smoke hangs that low, might change that to match the others. Might've been a visual experiment that I just left
Interchangeing with the ET&WNC, that's a net idea. I was under the assumption that the SV interchanged with the Southern or something.
SVRR was pretty distant from the Southern, deep in the middle of bumblefuck nowhere. A single ET&WNC branch south of Mountain City was their only connection to the outside world.
Oh. Barracuda.
2:15 Why so many shuffs? Only one set of cylinders exhaust out of the stack ;)
The sound department of content creation is where my care runs dry. I just threw the first thing I had on and called it a day, lmao
Edit; I'm not even sure if Trainz supports that even, one driver set would have to be a dummy to cut the chuffs in half, but that would mean it'd functionally lose that driver set entirely, making it perform like a 2-6-4 with an oversized boiler
Gotta love this cruddy game, lmao
UPDATE I GOT IT TO WORK
“By 1950 SVRR Number 13 “Burracuda” Had Been Put On the Logging Spurs and was Sidelined By 1960” “Today She can Be Found In the Rusty Sidings just North Of Shady Valley” “While She May Have Seen Better days there have been long term plans to restore her to operating condition”
“But She Will Always Be Remembered As Shady Valley Railroad Number 13 Burracuda”-documentary narrator 1984
She was trashed and scrapped in 1947.
@@thatredfokker just an alt cannon
@@General1855Mantua I know, I've just yet to list the fates of the SVRR's locomotives in any videos yet
@@thatredfokkerye
@@thatredfokkerbarracuda died in 1947 while her controls are broken and it crashed in a sharp curve and exploded, she is damaged beyond repair and scrapped.
Tweetsie mentioned
Now what i want to see is more industrial work with the shay and smaller trains with the forney and climax
Hey, soooo, very much unrelated, but I can't seem to find your profile on a... _certain site_ anymore. Did you get rid of it? _Completely understandable, if so_
No progress was really being made on projects at the time, and I wasn't on there for anything else, so I just dipped. I have a habit of just nuking things when they collect even a little bit of dust.
It wasn't all that necessary in the first place, I just never liked YT's 'community' tab, and I just wanted something cleaner to post WIP stuff on. But tbh, the community tab will do, since I'm not as focused on models as I used to be.
@@thatredfokker Ah, understood. Though I'm gonna miss the stuff that was there(like Barracuda running from Virtual Insanity, and being pulled backwards down the hill, steam siren screaming XD)
@@Railman1225fuck, now that you say it, that is a lot of goofy ass memes lost
@@thatredfokker yup...perhaps, if you still have them on your computer, you could repost them in the Community tab? or maybe compile them all in a YT video? or maybe... _maybe even use the new alternative to Twi-_ er, I mean, *_"X"_* 🙄
Have you heard of BlueSky?(it's basically Twitter, _but actually better,_ or so I've heard)
@@Railman1225 Eh these days I steer away from social media platforms besides discord and YT. Probably will just dump them into a video at some point lmao
Cool
Nice video. Like me😃