The Virginia Creeper Train was a real iron workhorse. It came into Ashe County in 1915 hauling lumber, tan bark, coal, mail, passengers and other cargo. With all of its noise and huffing and puffing black smoke, it held a fascination for some folks, especially children. Often they stood by the train tracks hoping the engineer would toss candy to them.
There is a place on the Virginia Creeper track line that has a history of its own. Located near Warrensville, NC, it is called the Devil’s Stairs Crossing. When workmen were preparing to lay the railroad tracks, a section of unstable slate rock was blasted. When the dust settled a jagged rock formation that looked like stair steps was etched into the cliffside and one worker had lost his life. People said the devil walked up and down those stairs at night.
In that same area, a toddler was playing on the tracks one day. Despite the efforts of the engineer, the train could not stop in time and sadly the child died. Some folks have claimed that at certain times, when the moon is full there at the Devil’s Stairs Crossing, you can still hear the train coming in the distance with its whistle blaring and nearby, the sound of a child crying in the night.
Many times while I waited in my car for the train to go by, I thought of old stories I had heard of travelers passing through the Devil’s Stairs Crossing at night. Years ago at the crossing, the devil supposedly got onto the back of a horse and went home with the rider. Or, he got into the back of a car or truck and went home with the driver. So, I wondered if the devil ever hoboed the Virginia Creeper Train here at the crossing. If he did, where did he go? I don’t know.
But, I do know one night in the 1960’s I was coming home after working second shift in West Jefferson. As I drove across the bridge at the Devil’s Stairs I heard the flop flop of a flat tire. I pulled over to the right shoulder of the road and set there for about twenty minutes praying someone would come along to help. Nobody did. There were no cell phones back then. Trying to concentrate on the task at hand, I got out of my car. Then I realized it was very dark – as black as pitch. Working by the light of my headlights and a flashlight, I jacked my car up and exchanged the flat tire for my spare. OH! Was that an eerie laugh I heard or just an owl screeching in the trees overhead? FinaIly, I got the job done and the devil did not help me. Nor did he get into the back seat of my car and come home with me. That was a scary night. Sometimes our imaginations can almost frighten us to death.
I was aboard the Virginia Creeper Train only once before it retired in 1977. My three year old daughter and I rode the train from Lansing, across the New River, past the Devil’s Stairs Crossing and on to the depot in West Jefferson. That was quite an experience. The train is gone from our mountains now, but it lives on through pictures, paintings, stories and dreams. Memories of a bygone era.