Even though the brush has grown considerably the ground on each side of the tracks is still deep with cinders from the passage of A`s and Y`s struggling to move tonnage up grade at Blue Ridge Va. This shot was taken in the general area that so many photographers took those famous pictures and movies in the final years of N&W steam.
Michael Ridenhour
Very cool! You can also walk along the upgrades on some of the ex-L&N and Southern lines near here and find fairly thick deposits of cinders from the stacks of steam locomotives (but probably not this much).
Can you just imagine the countless number of steam locomotives giving all they had, that it took to make a pile that deep?? Remnants of steam on the N&W can be found everywhere it seems, but that just shows you how dramatic it must have been to see.
I have seen cinders deeper than that before right here in KY, on the LL branch I used to run on. Of course, it wasn't from the same source..that is what Southern used for ballast for years and years on branch lines :)