The Last Santa Train?

CSX Transportation; St. Paul, Va.; November 21, 2015

For 73 years Santa Claus has traveled the rails of the Clinchfield, Carolina & Ohio Railroad (known simply as "the Clinchfield." Traveling from Elkhorn City, Ky., to Kingsport, Tenn., (and spending most of its journey in far southwest Virginia), the Santa train has traditionally run on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, spreading cheer to Appalachia. In recent times, with the hardships of the southwest coal region, the train has been even more important in bringing Christmas to this economically challenged region of the U.S. The train has run under the banner of the Clinchfield, continued to run when the Clinchfield became a part of Seaboard System, and when CSX was formed  in 1981 the train still continued.

CSX; Pool Point, Ky.

In October 2015 CSX made the announcement that it was downgrading the Clinchfield main line (which extends from Elkhorn City to Spartanburg, S.C.). Elkhorn City to McClure, Va., would see a train serve one customer on an as-needed basis. From St. Paul, Va., to Frisco, Va., the tracks would still be used, but not by CSX -- Norfolk Southern runs trackage rights trains over this section. Customers in Kingsport would continue to be served from the south at Spartanburg. But two sections -- McClure to St. Paul and Frisco to Kingsport -- would see no more trains. To top it all off, 300 employees lost their jobs when CSX closed the Clinchfield shops at Erwin, Tenn. The Santa Train's route includes both of the sections of the railroad that will see no other trains.

I had not planned on chasing the Santa Train this year. I had chased it in 2014 and planned to go back for the 75th running in 2017. But with the sudden change in the status of the Clinchfield, I decided to do the chase again this year -- just in case. The only problem was I had a prior commitment in Lancaster, Pa., the night before. But with the possibility that the 2015 Santa Train might be the last through train on the railroad, I left Lancaster at 9:30 p.m. and did the all-night drive to Pool Point, Ky., just south of Elkhorn City. I caught up with the train as it made the spectacular crossing of a large bridge in Breaks Interstate Park at 7:45 a.m. on November 21. The train had already made two stops by this time.

After hiking out of Pool Point, I used the train's stop at Haysi, Va., to get ahead of it, setting up at the tunnel just north of the train's next stop at Clinchco, Va.

CSX Transportation; Clinchco, Va.; November 21, 2015

The train makes several stops of 15-20 minutes at various towns along the railroad. At each stop, Santa and his helpers throw tons of stuff (literally -- estimates say that 25 tons of goodies are distributed from the train) into the waiting crowds. The Kingsport Chamber of Commerce is the driving force behind the train, with a lot of help from CSX. Food City is also a major sponsor. Each year a celebrity helps Santa distribute gifts; this year it was Meghan Linsey, runner-up on the television show "The Voice."

Santa and Meghan Linsey; Clinchco, Va.; November 21, 2015

Santa stays out on the back platform of the rear observation car for the entire 110-mile trip, waving to everyone along the route. Up until a decade or so ago, gifts were thrown off to anyone standing near the tracks, but today gifts are only tossed at the designated stops. Santa was waving as the train headed towards the next stop at Fremont, Va.

CSX Transportation; Clinchco, Va.; November 21, 2015

We used the Fremont stop to get ahead of the train and set up for one of the classic shots on the Clinchfield -- passing the Union Baptist Church at Dante, Va. This is in the section that will have no more trains, so it was an important shot to get.

CSX Transportation; Dante, Va.; November 21, 2015

We caught the train again as it approached St. Paul, then ventured into the crowd again during the stop in St. Paul. Once again, an amazing amount of stuffed animals and other gifts came off the back of the train.

CSX Transportation; St. Paul, Va.; November 21, 2015

CSX; Dungannon, Va.

The train's next stop was at Dungannon, Va., and we caught the train coming into town there. This is the section of the Clinchfield that will still see Norfolk Southern trackage-rights trains.





Still on the trackage rights section, next up was Fort Blackmore, Va. A highway bridge provides a nice view of the train passing through the crowd before stopping the observation car at the designated spot so Santa can do his thing.

CSX Transportation; Fort Blackmore, Va.; November 21, 2015

CSX; Copper Creek Viaduct

From Fort Blackmore, the train heads for the scenic highlight of the entire railroad -- Copper Creek Viaduct near Clinchport, Va. A large crowd was gathered to watch the train make its crossing.

From here the tracks duck into a long tunnel while the roads take the long way around. The train had two more stops to make before arriving in Kingsport, wandering into Tennessee. Rather than follow the train around the mountain, we headed for Kingsport and set up at the Holston River bridge just outside of town. Right on schedule, just after 3:00 p.m., Santa arrived in Kingsport for the big Christmas parade in town. After cleaning and fueling, the train departed for Spartanburg and on to Jacksonville, Fla. In past years it would have gone only as far as Erwin, but that Clinchfield town is no longer used by the railroad.

So is this the last Santa Train? Is this tradition going to die just two years short of its 75th birthday? It's hard to imagine the 22 miles of track between McClure and St. Paul will be maintained by CSX for one train a year. CSX, however, has said publicly that it plans to continue the Santa Train tradition, and CSX CEO Michael Ward (who was on board the 2015 Santa Train) has said the train will continue. Still, a lot can happen between now and next year, and the shaky status of the former Clinchfield mainline makes you wonder... The Clinchfield has little in the way of online customers, especially with the downturn in the fortunes of Appalachian coal. It served primarily as a bridge line for coal traffic heading south, and those trains have all been rerouted.

My guess is if the Santa Train makes it to 2016, then it will make it at least until the 75th birthday in 2017. The next several months are critical, but sometime in the spring CSX is going to have to inform the Kingsport Chamber of Commerce on whether it will run the train in 2016. Let's hope that Santa continues to ride the Clinchfield!

CSX Transportation; Kingsport, Tenn.; November 21, 2015

Photos from this post can be purchased here.

Music City USA

CSX Transportation; Nashville, Tenn.; June 8, 2014

We're moving along with the big circle trip across the midwest from New Jersey to Arkansas and return. In both directions my brother Bruce and I stopped in Music City USA -- Nashville, Tenn. -- to check out the rail action. Our first stop on the outbound trip was at Lebanon, Tenn., where the Music City Star commuter trains lay up. Since this was a Sunday (June 8, to be precise), no Star trains were running.

Music City Star; Lebanon, Tenn.; June 8, 2014

Moving into Nashville our next stop was at the yard of the Nashville & Eastern just east of downtown. The railroad had some interesting locomotives in the yard, including a couple in modified BNSF Heritage II paint, relettered for the N&E. B40-8W No. 568 showed off the modified scheme, with N&E lettering replacing the BNSF on the nose and flank; it has also been named City of Nashville.

Nashville & Eastern; Nashville, Tenn.; June 8, 2014

Next we went into downtown, where the event formerly known as Fan Fair was going on (back before Nashville sold its soul to Clear Channel -- but I digress). Demonbraun Street provides a nice overview of southbound CSX trains passing under Broadway (below) and going by Nashville Union Station (top photo of this post). The station used to have a large train shed extending south from the headhouse, but all that's left is an empty parking lot. A steady stream of trains paused here to change crews.

CSX Transportation; Nashville, Tenn.; June 8, 2014

From here we continued west to Arkansas, but we would pass through Nashville again on the return trip, this time on Thursday, June 19. Our first stop was to get an inbound Music City Star train passing the bowling alley at Donelson as it pushed into Nashville.

Music City Star; Donelson, Tenn.; June 19, 2014

Next we had an outbound train passing through the station in Donelson. It would meet another inbound train just east of the station.

Music City Star; Donelson, Tenn.; June 19, 2014

Music City Star; Mill Creek, Nashville, Tenn.; June 19, 2014

Music City Star began operating on November 6, 2006, with the hope of capturing 1500 riders each day. Those numbers have never come to fruition, with 2013 ridership running around 900 passengers (which is actually slightly less than the previous year). Part of the problem is the Star only has three inbound trains in the morning and three outbound trains in the evening, with no midday service; to a large extent, many jobs are moving away from traditional work hours, making the train impractical. The other issue is the Nashville station is located outside the core of downtown, forcing riders to finish their trip to work on a bus. Nonetheless, Nashville remains committed to making the service work.

Service is maintained with three EMD F40PH locomotives that originally worked for Amtrak. Numbered 120-122 (Amtrak 332, 398 and 399 respectively), they pull two or three ex-Chicago & North Western gallery cars. Surprisingly, the trains don't lay over in Nashville during the day. All three sets return to Lebanon as revenue moves (although ridership is extremely light). They then return to Nashville (once again as lightly-used revenue moves) for the evening rush hour.

After finishing at Donelson we moved to the scenic highlight of the line -- the through truss bridge over Mill Creek outside Nashville, where we caught an outbound almost-deadhead move behind No. 122.

Moving into downtown, we caught one more outbound move near the Nashville & Eastern yard. In retrospect, we should have gone downtown and shot the train departing from the station. Next time...

Music City Star; Nashville, Tenn.; June 19, 2014

We wrapped up our look at Nashville when we found a Motive Power Resources leased switcher working what appeared to be gondolas of scrap metal outside of downtown. We were unable to determine the company the locomotive was working for, however. From here, we headed north -- I had to drop Bruce off at Lafayette, Ind., to catch Amtrak's Cardinal home, while I continued on to Owosso, Mich., for Train Expo.

Motive Power Resources; Nashville, Tenn.; June 19, 2014

More photos from the first day around Nashville (including the Union Station area) can be found here. Photos from the second day (including more Music City Star) can be found here.