Great Smoky Mountains Railroad Collage
by Joseph C Hinson
Title
Great Smoky Mountains Railroad Collage
Artist
Joseph C Hinson
Medium
Photograph - Digital Photography
Description
The Great Smoky Mountains Railroad (formerly Railway)owns 53 miles of the Murphy Branch, a former branch line of the Southern Railway (later Norfolk Southern) between Dillsboro and Andrews, North Carolina. The line was completed to Dillsboro in 1883 and reached Andrews in 1890. The Great Smoky Mountains Railroad began operations in 1988 as both a freight railroad and excursion line though no freight is currently hauled. Interchange with the outsde world is currently made in Silva with WATCO's Blue Ridge Southern.
The railroad has five diesel locomotives of various ancestry. 711 and 777 are EMD GP7s. 1751 and 1755 are EMD GP9s while 2467 is an EMD GP9.
The queen of the locomotive roster as the GSMR 1702, a 2-8-0 Consolidation type steam engine bought by the railroad in 1991. She was built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works for the United States Army Corps. of Engineers in 1942. She was stationed at Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina until being declared surplus and sold to the Warren & Saline River Railroad in Warren, Arkansas in 1946.
Upon dieselization, the Warren & Saline River sold her to the Reader Railroad in 1964. Not to be confused with the Reading Railroad, the Reader Railroad restored the 1702 and gave her some of the spotting characteristics that she keeps to this day. During this time, she was in “This Property Is Condemned “
with Robert Redford and Natalie Wood. In the movie, she played the role of Louisville & Nashville 1702.
In 1972, the 1702 was put into storage, where it remained until it was purchased by the Fremont & Elkhorn Valley Railroad in 1985. She ran excursions for that line until being sold to the Great Smoky Mountains Railway in 1991. She operated on the GSMR until 2004 when she was sidelined due to issues with her firebox. A rebuilding process began in 2012 and finally in the summer of 2016, she returned to service where she still runs as of late 2019.
Initially built to burn coal, she was converted to an oil burner
Uploaded
November 30th, 2019
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