In today’s Appalachian Moments Blog, we tackle the daunting task of building a railroad from Abingdon, Virginia to Todd, North Carolina as we take a ride on the Creeper…
For nearly 20 years, beginning in the 1880s, the prospect for a railroad coming into the mountains of Virginia and North Carolina looked bleak. Two companies ended up in bankruptcy before a third finally got the idea rolling down the tracks. And roll it did, into Damascus, Virginia in February, 1900.
Men hauled the surveying tools of the day, including a compass, a chain, a transit and a level while scampering through the woods, over the hills and across creeks. All that hammering of stakes into the ground was certainly quite a sight for the locals! Astounding was the creativity and vision of those first surveyors who plotted the course for the railroad as it snaked its way to White Top in 1912, and then to Elkland, now called Todd, a few years later.
The full trip from Abingdon to Todd was only 76 miles, but owing to its difficult terrain, 108 bridges had to be constructed to complete the journey!
According to news reports at the time, on May 12, 1915 the Creeper pulled into the Elkland depot amid spooked horses, barking dogs, folks waving hello from their homes and children running alongside in the pouring rain. In the beginning, the train ran every day but Sunday.
In the spirit of any new railroad route, towns sprang up along the tracks. White Top, Virginia, for example, had a hotel, a doctor, a dentist and 500 residents. And at the peak of its boom-time, Todd boasted two doctors, a dentist, one bank, seven stores, three mills, two hotels and the first car dealership in the county! However that Ford dealership was an ominous sign of things to come!
It was always an event when the train arrived as it was the main link to the outside world or what folks called the “yon end.”
We might think we can order almost anything online today, but back then the Sears and Roebuck catalog was the Amazon.com of the day. When the train arrived, railroad men unloaded wringer washers, Victrola record players, sewing machines, farm implements and even kits to build a house! Take that Amazon!
All those consumer goods were exciting, but the main objective of the railroad was to transport vast stands of virgin timber to markets in the Northeast. Huge stacks of Red Spruce from Mount Rogers, along with massive Oak and Chestnut from North Carolina filled flatbed cars. The tremendous weight of these enormous logs gave rise to the train’s nickname: The Virginia Creeper.
A 3-percent uphill grade might not sound like much, but during the return trip back up to White Top, people could literally walk alongside the train and keep pace. With especially heavy loads the train might be double-headed, meaning it used two engines to make the pull.
The Creeper didn’t stay around Todd for long. By 1933 it pulled out of the Tood station for the last time…just 18 years after it first arrived. Lumber shipments had decreased from 485 cars in 1927 to just 20 cars five years later. Moving freight on the rails was also losing out to trucks and passenger service to cars as roads improved.
A brief resurgence in rail traffic happened in the 30’s as stone was hauled for the construction of the Blue Ridge Parkway and carloads of cattle arrived having been shipped to North Carolina out of the dust bowl conditions out west.
In our next blog, we’ll ride in the caboose as the Creeper leaves the station for the last time. As always, thanks for liking, commenting and sharing your own Virginia Creeper memories…
You can watch the trailer or purchase the film we created for the Creeper here: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/virginiacreeper