Knoxville ’75: A Memorable Steam Summit

Driving south recently on Interstate 75, nearing the Kentucky/Tennessee line, an upcoming offramp caught my eye, causing me to make a quick turn to the right. “Next exit, Jellico.”

Jellico! A town I likely never would have known were it not for a memorable July 30, 1975, steam excursion behind celebrated Southern Railway 2-8-2 No. 4501. The fantrip was part of the annual National Railway Historical Society convention, back when it was a really big deal, not to be missed. 

The Knoxville convention was sponsored by the Old Smoky Chapter, NRHS, and it had a lot going for it: two round trips behind the 4501, plus an excursion on Louisville & Nashville to Jena, Tenn., behind Clinchfield 4-6-0 No. 1, an ancient (1882), diminutive, but spiffy engine revived for a time by CRR boss Tom Moore, there to fly the Family Lines flag.

For those who wanted to arrive and depart in style, there was the “Tennessee Special” out of Washington, D.C., and return aboard the “Blue Ridge Special,” part of the trip via Roanoke on Norfolk & Western. The convention trains were pulled by green-and-gold Southern passenger E8s 6906, 6905, and 6903, the latter equipped with a steam whistle. 

If I make all this sound a bit overwhelming, I should explain that this was my first NRHS convention, and likely my first exposure to a large crowd of fans in one place at one time. Only 24, I was pretty green, using vacation time from my job writing ad copy for Kalmbach. I had a companion to share it with, my pal John B. Corns, who a few years later would become chief photographer for Chessie System and later CSX.

John and I had a ball making the most of our chief obsession at the time: steam. The 4501 was in the prime of its excursion career, still dazzling everyone with its apple green-and-gold paint job. Mainline steam was comparatively rare in those days, and for a lot of us this engine was still the Main Event. At this point in history, the Southern Steam Program was in full stride. 

At night, most of the equipment for all the trips reposed at Knoxville’s Southern station, a handsome Classical Revival depot designed by SR architect Frank Pierce Milburn and opened in 1903. Escaping the smothering heat in the evening, we’d stroll those platforms and imagine we were there for the arrival of the Birmingham Special or the Pelican, an experience made bittersweet by the fact that Amtrak didn’t (and still doesn’t) serve Knoxville.  

But back to Jellico. The convention’s Saturday trip was a day-long trek up Southern’s 75-mile branch to Jellico, where SR linked up with L&N to jointly serve some coal mines on what was known as the Clairfield Branch. The Southern served the mines out of Jellico, which in those years were experiencing a bit of a coal boom. Today, portions of this line survive as R.J. Corman’s Knoxville & Cumberland Gap Railroad.  

The 4501 put on quite a show that day, especially on Copper Ridge, the ruling grade over Southern’s K&O (ex-Kentucky & Ohio) line, a long stretch of 1.9% grade that had our USRA Mikado pushed to the max. John and I managed to get spots on the open-air car Lookout Mountain and enjoyed a (mostly) refreshing breeze. 

The trip also gave us a chance to spend some time with Trains Editor ­David P. Morgan. I saw Dave around the Milwaukee office a lot, but it was quite something else to be out on the property with him. Despite the heat, D.P.M. was in his customary apparel: suit, dress shirt, tie, and Kromer cap. He spent most of the trip seated quietly and unobtrusively at an open-window coach seat.

Near Jellico, the train slowed for a photo runby and most of us detrained. I can’t recall precisely where the location was, but it was stretch of straight track, unusual for this territory. Hundreds of us climbed down to the ballast and set up for a conventional wedge shot of 4501 speeding by with our train. I wasn’t all that enthusiastic about the photo. I also wish I’d known that, just a few feet away, I could have introduced myself to 16-year-old Jim Wrinn, future Trains editor. 

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a young couple waiting to shoot the train. As the 2-8-2 came pounding into sight in the distance, the guy hoisted his girlfriend (or his wife?) up on his shoulders so she could get a perspective above everyone else. I turned to Corns and said, “hey, we’re getting the wrong shot!” I backed up with my Nikon and tried to compose the pair along with the onrushing 4501.

The photo was just an impulse, not something I thought much of. But when I got back to Kalmbach, I asked company photographer Art Schmidt to make some prints off my negatives, and one of them was the picture of the couple. I dropped off samples on Morgan’s desk and forgot about it. A few weeks later Trains staffer Dave Ingles stopped in the Sales Department and surprised me with a page proof of the November 1975 issue. There, prominently on page 3, was my photo of the 4501 “tag team,” alongside the intriguing headline “A Knoxville Fable.” 

What Morgan had to say about Knoxville was memorable, and worth repeating, for anyone who loves railroading purely for the sake of it: “Hundreds of people gathered of their own means without coercion of discrimination to enjoy something both useful and beautiful — the railroad. The convention reaffirmed the fact that train-watching has come of age as a certified, institutionalized, worthy preoccupation.” Amen, Dave.