The Clinchfield: In the annals of American railroading, the name is magic. The Clinchfield spun steel rails across, over, and through America’s great Appalachian Mountains, hauled 20 million tons of coal a year, annually forwarded 6 million tons of manifest freight ranging from Florida citrus to steel and automobiles, generated outstanding profits, and operated with such verve and through such memorable and majestic scenery to be called the “Rio Grande of the East.” In short, the Clinchfield was railroading’s Appalachians gem.

It was no simple task to build a railroad through the Appalachians. The oldest section of what became the Clinchfield was a 19-mile line laid down north from Johnson City, Tennessee, in the late 1880s by the diminutive but grandly named Charleston, Cincinnati & Chicago. The “Three-C” went no farther and a successor, the Ohio River and Charleston, added but another 14 miles of track. But then came George L. Carter, a man with a steel will that proved more than a match for the unforgiving Appalachians. With his South & Western (later to become the Carolina, Clinchfield & Ohio), Carter carved a superb railroad through the mountains at an average cost of $201,000 a mile. By 1909, the CC&O had reached Dante (rhymes with “ant”) Virginia, a tiny village tucked in the coal-rich country north of Sandy Ridge. Carter soon extended his railroad, with what was called the “Elkhorn Extension” 35 miles from Dante through the Breaks of the Big Sandy to Elkhorn City, Kentucky, thus tapping the coal-laden hills of northwestern Virginia and providing a connection with the great Chesapeake & Ohio. Dressed for the occasion in a long-tail coat and derby hat, George L. Carter drove home the main line’s final spike 3 miles north of Dante in 1915. In the following decades, the railroad would add branch lines – the Fremont Branch, Nora Spur, Greenbriar (Haysi) Branch, and McClure Spur – to tap ever more coal mines, tipples, and loaders. Eventually, between Elkhorn City and Dante, the railroad would serve more than 30 coal-loading facilities. And in a final count, the railroad had hewn from the Appalachians more than 50 tunnels totaling more than 10 miles in length. For the duration of its life, George Carter’s railroad would, legally, be the CC&O, with the Clinchfield Railroad serving as its operating entity.

From its northern terminus at Elkhorn City, Kentucky, where it connected with the Big Sandy Subdivision of the Chesapeake & Ohio, the Clinchfield extended 276 route-miles south to Spartanburg, South Carolina, where it connected with the Charleston & West Carolina subsidiary of the Atlantic Coast Line (later Seaboard Coast Line), as well as the Southern Railway. The Clinchfield also had connections with the Norfolk & Western and Interstate Railroad (later a part of the Southern) at or near St. Paul, Virginia.

In 1924, the Atlantic Coast Line and Louisville & Nashville (the latter of which was itself largely controlled by ACL) gained control of the Clinchfield. In the steam era, the Clinchfield was, not surprisingly, famed for its big steam, which culminated with its roster of 4-6-6-4s, a group of which were largely copies of Union Pacific’s famed Challengers. The Clinchfield began to dieselize in the late 1940s, primarily with Electro-Motive stylish gray-and-yellow-clad F-units and Geeps. In the second-generation of the diesel era, the Clinchfield would call upon EMD and GE motive power, with the EMD SD40 becoming the latter-day workhorse of the railroad (wearing first gray and yellow and later black and yellow liveries).

The Clinchfield was both an extraordinary coal hauler and a busy and vital bridge line for manifest freight traffic by providing a link between the Chesapeake & Ohio on its north and the Atlantic Coast Line in the south. Indeed, the CRR regularly carded multiple priority manifest freights a day and called itself “The Quick Service, Short Line Route between the Central West and Southeast.” The hottest train on the railroad was Train No. 97 – the “Florida Perishable” – which via ACL, Clinchfield, and C&O hurried fresh citrus to the Midwest. But the heart of the Clinchfield and its fame remained coal hauling. Despite its relatively limited size when measured by route-miles, the Clinchfield was one of America’s preeminent coal haulers.

Although controlled by ACL/SCL and L&N for decades, the Clinchfield maintained an independent identity into the 1980s. That finally changed in December 1982 with the merger of its two owners, Seaboard Coast Line and Louisville & Nashville, into Seaboard System. In January 1983, the Clinchfield was likewise folded into the Seaboard System as the new railroad’s Clinchfield Division. The Seaboard System, in turn, became a part of today’s giant CSX system in 1986, and today the ex-Clinchfield remains an active rail line serving as CSX’s Kingsport Subdivision.

The upcoming Train Sim World 2 Clinchfield Railroad route will re-create the legendary railroad as it existed in its final independent years of the 1970s and early 1980s. The upcoming route extends from the railroad’s northern terminus and connection with the C&O at Elkhorn City, Kentucky, 35 main line route-miles to Dante, which served as the key point of CRR’s coal operations. And the upcoming Train Sim World 2 route will include each of Clinchfield’s captivating, and extraordinarily challenging to operate, north-end coal branch lines – the rugged and tonnage-rich Fremont Branch, steep Nora Spur, remote and famed Greenbriar (or Haysi) Branch, and the modern McClure Spur. Together, these remarkable branch lines will add another 27 miles of trackage to the upcoming route.

As an engineer on the upcoming Train Sim World 2 Clinchfield Railroad route, you will take the throttle of first- and second-generation Clinchfield Electro-Motive diesels in the form of the classic F7 and potent SD40 to battle heavy tonnage and twisting grades as you make your way through the towering Breaks of the Big Sandy, glide across 115-foot-high Pool Point Trestle, and bore through 7,854-foot-long Sandy Ridge Tunnel, making the unrelenting tough climb to sprawling Moss Mine and Preparation Plant on the Fremont Branch – and much more!

Keep a close eye on Dovetail Live in the coming weeks, as we’ll be presenting further information and advance images of the upcoming Train Sim World 2 Clinchfield Railroad route! Follow @trainsimworld on Twitter and Facebook to make sure you don't miss anything! – Gary Dolzall

The Appalachian majesty of the Breaks of the Big Sandy is on full display as a Clinchfield coal train emerges from State Line Tunnel and grinds its way upgrade along the path of Russell Fork amid 1975 fall foliage.