FlanaryRon-CSXSO-OsbornesCurve-Dungannon-10-99 copy
I wonder how many trains and how many locomotives and cars the L.G.Osborne & Son store just north of Dungannon, VA, on the former Clinchfield Railroad, has witnessed. This is milepost 56.1 (from Elkhorn City), and the four degree left hand curve (headed south) atop the fill crosses Dry Creek (which is anything but "dry" when heavy rains hit the region!). I've photographed trains here since the late '60s, and I don't recall the store being open. If you look instead, though, the shelves are still stocked with many items. Grade work (but no track) for a railroad was first done through these parts in the 1880s, by the stillborn Charleston, Cincinnati & Chicago--the "Triple C." In 1894 the Ohio River & Charleston took up the cause again, but it gave way to George L. Carter's South & Western, which finally built this fill (and track this time) about 1908-09. This company morphed into the Carolina, Clinchfield & Ohio, which completed the line between Spartanburg, SC and a connection with the Chesapeake & Ohio at Elkhorn City, KY in 1915. In 1925, the CC&O was leased for 999 years to the Atlantic Coast Line and Louisville & Nashville, which operated the line by the name we all remember: The Clinchfield. In September 1999 the old store witnesses yet another southbound freight operated by successor CSX Transportation. And if you had a scanner tuned to the right frequency, you would have heard: "CSX 644 South....clear signal, Osborne's Curve..."
FlanaryRon-CSXSO-OsbornesCurve-Dungannon-10-99 copy
I wonder how many trains and how many locomotives and cars the L.G.Osborne & Son store just north of Dungannon, VA, on the former Clinchfield Railroad, has witnessed. This is milepost 56.1 (from Elkhorn City), and the four degree left hand curve (headed south) atop the fill crosses Dry Creek (which is anything but "dry" when heavy rains hit the region!). I've photographed trains here since the late '60s, and I don't recall the store being open. If you look instead, though, the shelves are still stocked with many items. Grade work (but no track) for a railroad was first done through these parts in the 1880s, by the stillborn Charleston, Cincinnati & Chicago--the "Triple C." In 1894 the Ohio River & Charleston took up the cause again, but it gave way to George L. Carter's South & Western, which finally built this fill (and track this time) about 1908-09. This company morphed into the Carolina, Clinchfield & Ohio, which completed the line between Spartanburg, SC and a connection with the Chesapeake & Ohio at Elkhorn City, KY in 1915. In 1925, the CC&O was leased for 999 years to the Atlantic Coast Line and Louisville & Nashville, which operated the line by the name we all remember: The Clinchfield. In September 1999 the old store witnesses yet another southbound freight operated by successor CSX Transportation. And if you had a scanner tuned to the right frequency, you would have heard: "CSX 644 South....clear signal, Osborne's Curve..."