Southern Railway Knoxville History

[etalcos]

Steve Smith's questions about the lay of the land here in Knoxville got me to doing some digging for a history on Southern's (and L&N's) predecessors and operations in Knoxville and East Tennessee.   A fair amount of this was written nearly 30 years ago by a fellow named Bob Henderson, now deceased.  Bob's writtings were printed  by the local NRHS chapter and represents one of maybe three things that they have done in 50 years that were actually supportive of rail preservation.  I've added some updates and material from other references, and this may take several posts to cover it all.

I guess that the first thing to remember is that Southern is a patchwork; very little of it's route miles were actually built new by Southern.  Kind of like Conrail, but without the government bailout to make it work.  J.P.Morgan pieced Southern together in 1894 out of 26 different foreclosures, primarily out of the bankruptcy of the Richmond and Danville and ETV&G.

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ETV&G

I guess the oldest SR predecessor here in Knoxville was the Hiwassee Railraod Chartered in 1836.  66 miles were graded and a bridge built over the Hiwassee River near Calhoun, but construction stopped.  In 1848 the East Tennessee and Georgia was chartered and took over the work.  Daily service was happening between Dalton, GA on the Western and Atlantic and Loudon by 1852.  From there a ferry across the Tennessee River and a horse and buggy ride got you to Knoxville.  By1855 a bridge was built and the line completed to Knoxville. 

You can still make out remanants of the rail line going down to the waterfront in Loudon on the West side of the river.  For all intents and purposes the ET&G stopped at the Southern Depot in downtown Knoxville. 

In 1858 a branch was built from Cleveland to Chattanooga to connect with the W&A, the Nashville & Chattanooga, and the Memphis & Charleston.  TVRM's line in Chattanooga was part of this branch.

North of Knoxville, a charter for a railroad to Virginia was issued in 1836, but there was no action until 1848 when the East Tennessee & Virginia was created.  Construction began in Mabscot (no typo, it later became Mascot) in 1851 and was completed to Knoxville by 1855.  Over the next three years the line was completed to Bristol, with the final spike being driven near Greenville on May 14, 1858.  This completed a through rail route from the northeast to the major cities of the south with all one gage and no un-bridged rivers.  Critical to the soon to be formed Confederate States of America.

Following the War of Northern Aggression, the ET&G and ET&V merged in 1869 and was headquartered in Knoxville.  Over the next few years the ETV&G expanded mostly by acquisition to reach Bristol, Memphis, Shreveport, Savannah, and Jacksonville.  That is where it stood when SR came about in 1894 .

Basically this was the Bristol to Chattanooga line through Knoxville.  ETV&G's yard and shops were basically the City Yard area in downtown Knoxville .  There is at least one ETV&G Depot left south of Knoxville, but I can't think of the name of the little town to save me?

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Next up K&O......

Charlie

[etalcos]

K&O, and Walden Ridge

In 1855 the Knoxville and Kentucky Railroad was chartered to provide access to the coalfields of Anderson County.  At the time Knoxville was using around 10,000 tons of coal annually and Knox County as well as the City of Knoxville signed up for stock to support the venture.  By 1861 tracks had reached Copper Ridge (Powell), but that was as far as it got until after the Civil War.  Around 1869 the line was re-organized as the Knoxville and Ohio Railroad.

The line reached Coal Creek/Lake City and by 1877 Caryville and by 1882 Jellico.  During 1881 the line came under control of the ETV&G.   From 1882 till 1905 the K&O handled all of the L&N traffic from Jellico to Knoxville (more on this later).  When the L&N built its own line south of Jellico, trackage rights were obtained between Jellico and Holton and the branch was built to the Fonde and Clear Creek coalfields.

In 1882 the Walden Ridge Railroad was incorporated to build a narrow gage line to link Clinton and Harriman, and eventually Nashville.  This didn't last for a full year before the ETV&G bought them out and the line was converted to a standard gage project.  However, the work was slow, not reaching Harriman Junction and the connection to CNO&TP till 1888.  The dreamed of connection to Nashville was finally realized in 1895 when the Tennessee Central arrived in Harriman.

The K&O technically started roughly behind the old H.T. Hackney Company near 17th Street -- MP 0.  The K&O basically formed two legs of a wye with the ETV&G mainline forming the base leg, and the east leg passing under the North end of the Broadway viaduct.  This still gets used periodically by KXHR and NS to turn cars or locomotives. 
The yard along the West leg of the wye is, conveniently enough, the K&O yard.

Also, the L&N came off the Southern at Baxter Avenue and went under the ETV&G mainline near the Foundry.  Once L&N built it's own line from Jellico to Knoxville this became little more than an industrial spur.  With the advent of the World's Fair in 1982 the connection to the L&N was severed and the line was accessed via trackage rights over Southern from Willoughby and up the K&O.  CSX finally got fed up with the rights and gave NS the Knox Metals/PSC traffic which was all that was left. 

As a kid I remember the WR (Walden Ridge) Local coming out of Sevier and working all the way to Harriman.  They always seemed to have a few covered hoppers bound for Harriman.  Today T-12 works the path of the WR local with limits to Harriman, but seldom going past Blair on almost the same schedule.  Also, we used to have a Jellico Local which would bring loads from Jellico down to Black Oak siding (Cedar Lane) in the evenings and return North light.  Anyway this was the last train I saw with an all Southern consist -- a mix of GP-30s, 35s, and 38s. 

More later.
 

Charlie

[ssmith1627]

I'm printing this now and will read though it tonight.   Thanks very much for posting it.  I think it's fantastic.   

Steve

[billworsham]

I really like this history.  Great job and keep it up.  Certainly would like to see more.  Thank you.

[Backyard]

  Thanks ET! This is recommended reading!

I see L&N track still listed on the TOPO map northeast of Harriman to an industry across the river.

I can see how the CSX has claimed track-rites into the Kingston(mudslide).

[etalcos]

Glad ya'll like it.  I'll try and get another couple installments this weekend.  The railroading around Harriman is real interesting too; I'll try to dig up some notes on that too.

Charlie