We took a family vacation to the Great Smoky Mountains west of Asheville, NC in March, 2021, affording me the better part of the day Tuesday, March 30 to take a look at WATCO’s Blue Ridge Southern railroad running west from Asheville, and centered on Evergreen Packaging’s massive paper mill in Canton, NC. Confirming that a typical day would have an morning local west and the daily road train to Asheville running east out of Canton, I got out early enough to catch a rising sun over the Evergreen facility.
Working my way east, I almost missed the T59 local headed west in downtown Canton:
I explored around the locomotive servicing area and yard office on the east side of Canton.
The crew fired up the 3 SD45 carbodies (long since rebuilt into SD40-2 “insides”) and started moving around putting their train together. The switching activity afforded some time to explore and get a few different angles, including this one overlooking the Pigeon River bridge.
The train pulled up to the crew office (presumably for paperwork, maybe coffee too…) and I grabbed a quick photo and then set out east for a look at the large bridges along the line towards Asheville.
I found the first large bridge not far out from town, and got permission from the car repair garage to park and fly the drone over their property. I didn’t have to wait long, and a few grade crossings gave me ample warning to get the drone up in the air.
I continued to give chase, shooting T31 from an overpass several miles east of town. The Southern Railway whistle-post denotes the age-old “long long short long” whistle pattern for a grade crossing.
West of Candler, the train was really moving, and I got an accidental drone shot that wasn’t half bad…
I got some lunch & made a Target run, and got myself in position near the limestone quarry between Enka and Candler, where the line makes a great saddleback. Many of the secondary routes in the south were built on a less aggressive capital budget, and therefore did not employ the same cut-and-fill techniques seen in the northeast, resulting in an undulating grade profile… best illustrated (exaggerated?) with a telephoto view as follows:
Continuing west, another drone photo of the former Southern trestle east of Canton, where the three units’ turbos were screaming as the train moved closer to 10 mph up the grade.
Back into the main terminal area at Canton, another former-Delaware & Hudson GP39-2 shuttled cars about as the T31 came into town.
I was happy with a warm sunny day, with cooperative trains and clouds, and thoroughly enjoyed WATCO’s operations keeping the Evergreen facility moving. After that, it was time to get back to the family to wrestle up some dinner on the grill.
