Southern Unionist
First Sergeant
- Joined
- Apr 27, 2017
- Location
- NC
[pic: AppalachianHistory.net]
Many Christmas trains have run over the years in various places, but any way you measure it, the Clinchfield Santa Train has to be the all-time champ.
For decades, the train was led by Clinchfield engine #1, a 4-6-0 built in 1882, long before the Civil War generation died out. Initially, it was a rather informal thing. with donated Christmas gifts for poor children being dropped off by the regularly scheduled daily passenger train in a number of impoverished coal camps of east Tennessee and western Virginia. Then the event grew, and became a dedicated special train that lasted long after the end of regular passenger service in the area. Santa rode on the train's rear platform, and was greeted in most towns by the mayor and large crowds, along a route that stretched more than a hundred miles. It eventually received national press coverage.
Eventually, Clinchfield #1 grew too old to pull the train anymore, but a clever trick preserved the train's tradition of steam. Old #1 could still safely make enough steam to blow a whistle and make some smoke, but could barely pull a single car uphill, so she received a modern control stand just to the left of the original engineer's controls, and electrical cables were run to an F-7B directly behind it, a cabless diesel that somewhat resembled a baggage car. It was the F-7B that was doing all the real work of pulling the train. (For longer summer and fall passenger excursions, a second F-7B could be added.) This is the version of the train shown in the picture above.
The #1's boiler deteriorated to the point where it was condemned by safety inspectors, and it now sleeps in the B&O Railroad Museum in Baltimore.
Several diesels have pulled the train since then, and the most notable one was restored this year to pull the 75th annual Clinchfield Santa Train, continuing on into the future as the longest and most famous Christmas train in America.
https://www.csx.com/index.cfm/about-us/legacy-locomotives/clinchfield-800-legacy-locomotive/
http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2017/11/06-clinchfield-f
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