In today’s Appalachian Moments Blog we get personal with the Virginia Creeper but also watch it leave the station for the last time.
Even though the Creeper wasn’t primarily a passenger train, it was always a thrill to ride to the next town, sit by an open window dodging the black and gray cinders from the smokestack and wave to people living along the track.
The greatest thrill was taking the train all the way to the end of the line in Abingdon, VA…it was like going to the end of the world.
Conductors helped passengers into the coaches of the train, the heavily varnished wooden interiors were lit by oil lamps hanging from the ceiling. A passenger coach on the Virginia Creeper was a great cross-section of humanity…
Squirming children, ladies in colorful flour sack dresses and working men in rough bib overalls filled the seats along with gentlemen in top hats wearing their finest clothes along with ladies in hoop skirts, petticoats and laced up leather shoes.
According to engineer Fitzhugh Nichols, the opinion of people who lived along the line was very important to the railmen, who tried every way they could to accommodate them. “We’d pick them up and let them off from just about anywhere they wanted.”
There was a gang of boys who might line up by the railroad, board the train in Lansing and ride to Warrensville. They told them they could ride at their own risk and at the end of the ride they had to walk back home to Lansing (3.7 miles). They did.
At times, some children actually rode the train to school. Four pulls on the whistle would send kids scurrying from the house to one of the many sidings built along the tracks.
Some children would put an ear to the tracks and listen for the train. They said they could hear the train through the rail long before you heard the whistle.
According to Junior Mikael, his brother Butch brought ice cream on the train from Abingdon and the folks in Todd had never seen it before.
Maude Calhoun remembered what it was like to ride the train unaccompanied as a 10-year old. In 1945 her father sent her from Bina to Bristol, VA to see her aunt. He literally pinna a tag on her and introduced her to the conductor with a note of where to let her off. Different times!
Many folks said the end of the Creeper as they knew it was in 1957 when diesel engines replaced the puffing coal-fired engines.
But on the morning of March 31st, 1977 the train came to make its final pickups as the railroad was making less than a third of what it needed to keep the line open.
When the caboose was leaving West Jefferson, the brakeman tossed out candy as folks waved goodbye for the final time.
While most people lamented the loss of the friendly old train and its whistle, some felt betrayed by its coming and going. That while the wholesale cutting of Ashe County’s timber brought money into the county, it left the area denuded of natural beauty and in some cases despoiled.
Hindsight is 20/20…as the rails were picked up and carried off, right-of-way from the railroad was returned to North Carolina land owners. Who knew of its recreational value?
On the other hand, from Abingdon to Damascus, most of the actual land IS private, but the right of way is still intact. Thousands of people from all over the world travel to that area along the Virginia Creeper Trail to experience an outdoor adventure…and retrace the tracks of that special train.
As always, thanks for liking, commenting and sharing your own Virginia Creeper memories past or current…You can watch the trailer or purchase the film we created for the Creeper here: