Ah, the wonders of search engines. Paul has stumbled across the former Southern Railway’s “Rathole Division”, the former Cincinnati, New Orleans, & Texas Pacific (CNO&TP) route built with a fairly straight grade but at the cost of numerous tunnels. In the days of steam engines, they had to build smokestack extensions (the “Wimble duct”)to blow the exhaust past the cab in the confined space of the tunnels.
Most of the bores have been “daylighted” now and the Norfolk Southern discontinued Southern’s steam excursion program years ago so it’s not quite as interesting to railroad buffs.
Of course, if the light rail promoters could partner up with the N. C. Transportation Museum and run steam engines back and forth through the Triangle, maybe the ridership numbers would look more positive … and the use of coal burners would not only provide more jobs, it would be a positive reduction in the foreign oil needs of Raleigh’s commuters …
