04/20/2026
Here is a look back to one of the best mainline big steam chases I ever experienced following Norfolk and Western Class J 4-8-4 611 on her round trip from Spencer to Asheville and return via Norfolk Southern's S Line and the famed Old Fort Loops across the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Old Fort, North Carolina
Sunday April 10, 2016
Striding Into Old Fort
With the news that Norfolk Southern has just run the first freight over the famed Southern Loops and reopened this legendary eastern mountain crossing after the devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene in September 2024 I thought I'd share a photo from the last time I visited. Here's what I wrote when originally posted:
Here is a look back to one of the best mainline big steam chases I ever experienced following Norfolk and Western Class J 4-8-4 611 on her round trip from Spencer to Asheville and return via Norfolk Southern's S Line and the famed Old Fort Loops across the Blue Ridge Mountains. Though she traveled this route many times during her first excursion career in the 1980s and early 90s this trip would turn out to be her one and only time traversing the route during NS' short lived 21st Century Steam program revival.
This is a legendary eastern mountain railroad that was little remarked except by a dedicated few. I always wanted to visit this place and made it on two occasions....and I'm glad I did. Because in May of 2020 thanks the closing of the Linwood hump as part of the continued PSR driven traffic changes all through trains were removed from this route leaving only the daily round trip passage of the Asheville to Bridgewater local. But four years ago there were still two daily pairs of trains that traversed the length of the route along with occasional unit trains, extras, and re-routes.
The line is generally flat from Salisbury 111 miles west to Old Fort where suddenly it meets the thrust of the Blue Ridge Mountains and climbs 1000 ft to the Eastern Continental Divide at Ridgecrest, elevation 2535 ft. The top of the grade is only three miles as the crow flies from Old Fort, but it takes about 13 rail miles to get there. There are seven tunnels (including the 1832 ft long one at the summit) on the line and grades as steep as 2.9%. The train is seen here having reached the bottom of the grade on their return trip east as they curl over the Orchard St. crossing at MP 111.5. They will momentarily cross over Mill Creek and under Main Street before rolling through the center of town and past the throngs of fans standing by the old Southern Railway depot that is gorgeously restored and a museum.
Completed by the Western North Carolina Railroad in 1880 the route ultimately came into the Southern Railway fold and was an important through route for nearly a century and a half. But now times have changed and the future is uncertain. However, the state of North Carolina has longed to bring passenger rail to Asheville via this route, so with the shift of freight traffic away now may be the time. I'm confident the rails here will remain, though the main focus of their economic utility may shift. Only time will tell.
To learn more find yourself of a copy the September 2006 issue of Trains magazine.
Old Fort, North Carolina
Sunday April 10, 2016
