Scenic Railroading in East Tennessee - Fall 2018

Last year's colors were stellar and was lucky to catch them when I did. I really miss shooting video in the colors and I really regret that I didn't do more in the fall in 2018. I had planned to do a bit more on the K&O and former L&N KD sub, but traffic patterns didn't pan out to be conducive for daylight shots. If the colors pan out again in 2019 I'd like to shoot on a damp day.
Starting in Clinton NS 23G got 144's power hitched to the rear at Laurel to help shove them over Copper Ridge's 2.0% grade. This is one of the first memorable encounters with a former CSX AC6000CW. CSX shed a lot of motive power in 2018 to lease fleet owners and NS had leased several hundred locomotives. This AC6000CW, like the rest CSX had, were re-engined with a GEVO 16 cylinder engine greatly reducing the horsepower. The HDL 16's those units had pumped the 6000 horsepower with price of reduced reliability and bad fuel efficiency. I never realized how long those units were even when they re-engined.
I caught the train again at Copper Ridge shoving hard. Once over the top 144's power cut and returned to their train at Laurel. I caught them one last time near De Armond, a location just north of Harriman, TN. The train's crew went on the law not to long after that and re-crewed at Harriman Junction before heading north up the CNO&TP.
The next day found a more interesting chase. An empty Kopper Glo coal train was headed up the Jellico Branch for a run to the mine at Clairfield. The colors were intense heading up the branch that day and I was not disappointed by it. The lead unit sports a mellow K-5LA turned around on the engine which made for some pleasant echos in the valley.
The train had to get on the CSX KD sub at Lot for a few miles to the control point at Holton, where the branch to the loader begins. The train immediately plunges into the solid rock tunnel at Holton after hanging a left off of CSX. Both NS and CSX load at Kopper Glo at the end of the branch.
A few miles into the branch was ARCO junction. A secondary branch the Southern Railway accessed went back some 20 odd miles to the ARCO loader. For many years heavy haul unit coal trains loaded at ARCO and followed the same route back to Knoxville as the Kopper Glo trains. That coal generally turned south at Knoxville.
Enjoy!

[@DelayInBlockProductions]

Another fantastic video!!!

[@Highpoint211]

Great video . I was surprised to see that "spotlight" signal at 10:37 , I thought Norfolk Southern had replaced them all .

[@DelmarvaRailProductions]

Nice video! (Although what I am seeing is a rendering error with the sync of the locos ditch lights) Thanks!

[@NSAaron]

I'm pretty aggravated with You-Tube at the moment. This video and the last one I uploaded screwed up the rendering somehow. The original on my computer is fine.

[@Highpoint211]

There's been people on the other CZcams channels complaining that they've been having problems when they've been uploading their videos recently .@@NSAaron

[@rogerdavidson217]

As a locomotive Engineer You wonder why I can't hear shit.

[@TnEMTP18325]

I live in Pioneer. How often do they do the Kopper Glo run up the Jellico Branch? It's not very often apparently.

[@KnoxvilleRailfanProductions]

Kopper Glo closed in 2020. Nothing runs past Turley anymore

[@georgiarailproductions]

when was the last time a Kopper Glo coal train ran?

[@KnoxvilleRailfanProductions]

2020