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CSX’s Chattanooga Subdivision is vital to transporting goods
through the mountains between the Midwest and Southeast
N
CSX SD40-2 8023 leads an empty ballast
train around Nickajack Lake near Chattanooga, Tenn., on April 22, 2006. Mark S. Wurst
Trains MARCH 2010
by Frank Kyper
estled deep in the mountains
northwest of Chattanooga, Tenn.,
is one of the oldest, continuously
operated pusher districts in the
East (since 1853). Every day,
trains in each direction stubbornly growl their way up and
gingerly descend the two miles of 2-percent grade north of 2,228-foot Cumberland
Mountain Tunnel and the grueling five
miles of 2.5 percent south of the bore.
The pusher terminal at Cowan, Tenn.,
at the north end of the climb, is a shell of
its former self in the days of steam power
and first-generation diesels. Three shifts
and a swing shift now work out of the squat
steel and concrete-block building in the
compact yard just west of downtown Cowan. Each crew, consisting of a conductor
and an engineer, and employing a single
pair of AC4400CWs, assists the heavier
trains over the mountain and through the
tunnel. Some trains go through this “railroad within a railroad” unassisted.
The obstacle of Cumberland Mountain
was recognized early in the planning for
what is now CSX’s 140‑mile Chattanooga
Subdivision from Nashville to Chattanooga.
When Dr. James Overton, one of the early
backers of the Nashville & Chattanooga
Railroad, was asked in the 1840s how he intended to get over the steep spine, his reply
was bluntly succinct: “Why, bore a hole
through it, of course!” This was a bold re-
CSX Q125 prepares to depart Nashville, while Q649 with BNSF power waits for a crew. Kayne
Avenue is the crew change point for trains passing through downtown Nashville. Doyle Massey
sponse at a time when the first railroad tunnel in the South, the bore on the Western &
Atlantic Railroad at Tunnel Hill, Ga., was
slowly approaching completion. With J. Edgar Thomson, later president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, leading the N&C engineers,
a railroad was soon surveyed up, through,
and down Cumberland Mountain.
Construction of the tunnel started in
© 2010 Kalmbach Publishing Co. This material may not be reproduced in any form
without permission from the publisher. www.TrainsMag.com
early 1849. Three vertical shafts were driven
to an average depth of 170 feet from the
mountaintop to track level. With the shafts
in place, crews of local residents, Irish laborers, and slaves blasted away with black powder in both directions in each shaft and
from both portals. The tunnel was holed
through in February 1851.
Unlike some other railroads, whose
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Two AC4400CW pushers arrive at Cowan,
Tenn., and head north after assisting a
southbound freight over Cumberland Mountain on May 12, 2007. Ralcon Wagner
The power for the Tullahoma Local, GP38-2 No. 2711, rests next to the former Tullahoma
station, which is still used by CSX. Doyle Massey
Chicago
ILL.
CSX’s
Chattanooga
Subdivision
Nashville
CSX Southeastern
Corridor
Lavergne
Smyrna
INDIANA
Murfreesboro
KENTUCKY
N
Nashville TENNESSEE
Map area
Wartrace
Chattanooga
Birmingham
N ALABAMA
Tullahoma
Estill Springs
Decherd
Cowan
Atlanta
GEORGIA
Jacksonville
FLORIDA
50 miles
© 2010 Kalmbach Publishing Co.,
TRAINS: Rick Johnson
This material may not be reproduced in any
form without permission from the publisher.
Sherwood
Bridgeport
Whiteside
Hooker
Stevenson
Wauhatchie
Chattanooga
completion was held up until its tunnels
were finished, the Nashville & Chattanooga had its bore ready well in advance of
the start of operations. Trains began blasting through the tunnel behind 4‑4‑0s
upon completion of the Nashville & Chattanooga two years later.
Despite the ravages of the Civil War that
raged around it a decade later, Cumberland
Mountain Tunnel was relatively unscathed.
A federal supply train was destroyed outside the north portal in 1863, but the bore
remained unharmed. Both sides made
good use of the new rail artery. Advancing
and retreating armies ravaged other parts
of the Nashville & Chattanooga. Miles of
Scale
Cumberland Mountain Tunnel
Not to scale
0
Trains MARCH 2010
rails on the branch lines were removed to
rebuild damaged mainline track.
After the war, as increasingly larger
steam power slogged upgrade and through
the tunnel, the bore’s vertical shafts proved
invaluable for ventilation. Various clearance projects over the years kept pace with
increasing car sizes, even as efforts were
made in 1879 by N&C successor Nashville,
Chattanooga & St. Louis to lessen the steep
grades on both approaches. The first heavy
0‑8‑0 and hefty 4‑4‑0s used in pusher service were superseded by Consolidations
shortly before the turn of the 20th century.
The Consolidations reached the limit of
their capabilities by 1915. A trio of massive
Class M1 2‑8‑8‑2s, Nos. 900‑902, arrived
from Baldwin to increase the shoving capacity. Cumberland Mountain met its match
when the 45‑inch drivers of the articulated
Mallets started to slog their way upgrade.
A pair of 2-8-2s coupled tender to tender
for bidirectional operation replaced the
war‑weary 2‑8‑8‑2s, retired in 1945. But the
steam pushers lasted only another seven
years. Diesels took over in 1952, with a standard diesel pusher set of three GP7s
The Louisville & Nashville Railroad absorbed the NC&StL in 1957. The L&N was
rolled into the Seaboard System in 1982.
CSX Transportation took over the Seaboard System in 1986.
All the pulsating rail activity of the
Cowan Pusher District was controlled for
many years from the two‑story frame station that stood on the east side of the tracks
in Cowan. Centralized Traffic Control
came to the NC&StL’s Chattanooga Division in 1944, and the dispatcher’s board
was housed on the second floor of the
Cowan station. The CTC board later went
elsewhere, and the Chattanooga Division
became a subdivision of the Atlanta Division. As modern diesel power lessened, but
failed to eliminate, the need for pushers,
trackage was reduced in the Cowan yard.
Eventually, the railroad’s need for the station ended. The structure was moved
across the tracks on Sept. 21, 1976, and
placed on the fringe of a park, where it
houses the Cowan Railroad Museum.
While the 11-mile Cowan Pusher District between Cowan and Sherwood receives the bulk of the attention on the
Chattanooga Subdivision, much of the
south end of the line displays towering examples of real mountain railroading and of
the extensive railway infrastructure needed
to surmount this rugged terrain. The line is
a natural extension of CSX’s Western & Atlantic line from Atlanta [see Trains, June
1993, pages 32‑41].
Since 1970, all through trains off the
CSX Q580, led by AC44CW No. 417, passes through Stevenson,
Ala., on Sept. 1, 2009. Three photos, Rober t Duncan
W&A Subdivision have changed crews near
Wauhatchie Yard on Chattanooga’s west
side before heading on to Nashville. Before
then, freight crew changes occurred at Cravens Yard in downtown Chattanooga and
passenger crews were changed at Union
Station. Even before reaching Wauhatchie,
the CSX main line shares a narrow shelf of
land with Interstate 24 as it skirts its way
around the base of towering Lookout
Mountain alongside the Tennessee River.
Near Wauhatchie, the Norfolk Southern’s line to Memphis, Tenn., joins CSX for
33 miles of joint trackage as far as Stevenson, Ala. The original joint operating
agreement dates from 1858, when the
Memphis & Charleston Railroad, later part
of the Southern Railway, was building toward Chattanooga. Until 1880, Nashville &
Chattanooga locomotives and crews forwarded the Memphis & Charleston cars
between Stevenson and Chattanooga. Then
a new agreement authorized through operation of M&C crews and trains.
The track west of Chattanooga climbs
up out of Wauhatchie, passes dam‑created
Nickajack Lake on the Tennessee River,
and crosses Running Water Creek on a
trestle that was one of the most spectacular on the old NC&StL. The 1,114‑footlong, double-track steel and concrete
structure soars 115 feet over the creek and
valley. It is the fifth rail structure on the
site, and dates from 1913. It was modified
to allow the passage of Interstate 24 when
the highway was built under it.
The broad Tennessee River parallels the
north side of the track. While the joint
CSX/Norfolk Southern line is heading
north (CSX) and west (NS) by timetable, it
is really turning to the geographic south at
this point to avoid mountainous terrain.
The track enters Alabama, reaches Bridgeport, and needs two bridges to island hop
across the Tennessee River. The eastern
span, over the shipping channel, has two
approaches and a vertical lift section to
clear river traffic. The structure was “transplanted” in 1980 from Danville, Tenn.,
CSX train Q237 pulls around a curve at sunset in Bridgeport, Ala.,
on Jan. 31, 2009.
Q676 led by ES44DC No. 5385 has just swapped crews near the Reflection Riding Arboretum and Botanical Garden in Chattanooga, Tenn., on July 29, 2008.
where it had served earlier on the Louisville
& Nashville’s abandoned Memphis Line.
On the wye behind the Spanish Mission-style Bridgeport station, the Sequatchie Valley Railroad starts its 40‑mile
track to South Pittsburg and Brush Creek,
Tenn. The Sequatchie Valley began life in
the 1890s and was leased to the Nashville,
Chattanooga & St. Louis in 1893. After
serving for many years as a NC&StL and
Louisville & Nashville branch, it was sold
to G.R. Abernathy as a short line in 1986.
The grade stiffens as CSX leaves Stevenson, Ala., and intensifies at Sherwood and
Tantallon, Tenn. Just as the track exits the
north portal of Cumberland Mountain
Tunnel, you see a picturesque stone arch
bridge over the track that at one time carried the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis
Railway’s Tracy City Branch overhead.
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As seen from Point Park, a CSX double-stack train rounds the base of Lookout Mountain
around Moccasin Bend inbound from Nashville and passes the former Cravens Yard, adjacent to Interstate 24, on June 5, 2007. Steve Freer
Extending to the north is the former
NC&StL Sparta Branch, now the 61‑mile
Caney Fork & Western Railroad. The Sparta Branch, which runs north from Tullahoma, built between 1860 and 1885, passed
through the succession of NC&StL, Louisville & Nashville, and Seaboard System
Trains MARCH 2010
Beyond Cowan, the north end of the
Chattanooga Subdivision provides a sharp
contrast to the other end. While the southern 58 miles of track from Wauhatchie to
Cowan is a nearly continuous series of
sharp curves and steep grades, a real
mountain railroad, the 85‑plus miles between Cowan and Nashville is nearly
straight, with only a few curves. The track
follows the gently rolling landscape, with
only modest fills and cuts to break the gentle up‑and‑down profile.
Modern freight cars with less slack in
their draft gears have reduced slack action
on the undulating track, a few jolts are felt
in the locomotive cab from the rear on the
short descending grades. Decherd, Tullahoma, Wartrace, Fosterville, Murfreesboro,
Smyrna, and Strickland, are soon left in the
wake of a manifest train as it heads for
Nashville’s Radnor Yard.
The Chattanooga Subdivision has become a rail pipeline for CSX, connecting
the North and Midwest with the Southeast.
With the efficient operation of the Cowan
Pusher District, even the Cumberland
Mountain and its tunnel have become little
more than a momentary blip in the passage
of some trains. But it is definitely not a
stretch of railroad to be taken lightly. 2
FRANK KYPER is a freelance writer living
in southwest Florida.
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CIR-ADH-10H1007
A CSX transfer from Norfolk Southern’s DeButts Yard in Chattanooga, Tenn., enters the
south end of Wauhatchie Yard as a southbound autorack train waits its turn to use the
interlocking on March 30, 2005. Mark S. Wurst
owners before being sold to the Tri-County
Railroad Authority in 1983. The Caney
Fork & Western also switches the 15 miles
of track inside the Arnold Engineering Development Center at Tullahoma.
At Wartrace, 13 miles north of Tullahoma, the Walking Horse & Eastern Railroad runs south for nearly eight miles to
Shelbyville, Tenn. The Bedford County
Railroad Authority acquired the former
Nashville & Chattanooga branch in 1985.
The operating company is owned by G.R.
Abernathy, and uses switchers from the affiliated Sequatchie Valley Railroad.
Passenger traffic on the Chattanooga
Subdivision has been history since Amtrak Day, May 1, 1971. Present‑day freight
traffic over the Chattanooga Subdivision
is an eclectic mix of commodities, from
twin‑stack containers on well cars to trailers on long articulated piggyback flats,
and from automobiles in towering trilevel
carriers to grain in covered hoppers, with
loads for export southbound and empties
northbound. A variety of other freight
rounds out the mix. Daily coal trains serve
the Tennessee Valley Authority steam
power plant at Widows Creek, Ala., just
east of Stevenson.
Locals drill out the interchange tracks
with connecting short lines. Local industries and cooperatives generate and receive
impressive quantities of on‑line traffic.
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