East Tennessee &
Western North Carolina Railroad

The story of the East Tennessee & Western North Carolina Railroad actually begins when our country was formed. Reuben White bought a plot of land from the State of North Carolina in 1790 that held an outcropping of iron ore that would come to be known as the Cranberry Iron Ore Belt. Others bought land around White as the news of the discovery got out. Legend has it that the Perkins Brothers discovered the iron ore vein but they did not come along until 30 years later. They did end up operating a forge at Cranberry, earning bounty lands from the State for encouraging iron production. The Cranberry Forge did provide iron for the Confederacy, but its remote location limited its contribution.

After the war, the 5' gauge ET&WNC was chartered to connect the mine with the growing railroad network. After some construction the work stopped due to some shady financial dealings and some funds that turned up missing. After years of investigations and a foreclosure sale, the mine property and the railroad ended up in the hands of the Cranberry Iron & Coal Company, which was controlled by northern investors. The railroad was finished as a 3' narrow gauge line, and opened for business in July 1882, connecting Johnson City, TN and Cranberry, NC. It passed through the rugged Doe River Gorge, where cliffs start at the river and rise vertically for hundreds of feet.

A Short History of the ET&WNC Railroad - Johnny Graybeal

The standard gauge section between Johnson City and Elizabethton continued to thrive for another half century. Two ex-Southern locomotives kept steam alive in Tennessee until replaced by diesels in 1967. Southern Railway traded two Alco RS-3s for the steamers, now badly wanted for excursion train service. The increasingly rare Alcos kept rail fans coming to see the railroad for another 20 years, until replaced by even more rare RS-32s. The East Tennessee & Western North Carolina became the East Tennessee Railway in 1985.

A Short History of the ET&WNC Railroad - Johnny Graybeal

Those are great shots of Southern #630. Now, a little trivia. Back in the 1960s, East Tennessee & Western North Carolina's general manager, a steam man, retired. The owners were looking for a steam man to replace him. Well, they found Cecil Bowden, an under-age Navy Seal during WWII. Back as a civilian, Cecil got a job in the Live Oak Perry & Gulf and Brooks-Scanlon shops at Foley, Fla. He was there when I started with the LOP&G in 1951. Even before Southern took over in 1954, the LOP&G's president was trying to wrest the LOP&G locomotives from Brooks-Scanlon maintenance. Basically he set up a shade tree shop in Perry and promoted Cecil as Master Mechanic somewhere about 1954-1955. Cecil had worked with steam, even ran them from time to time from 1946 until 1954 when Southern scrapped all the steam locomotives.

When Cecil got to the ET&WNC, he already knew Southern's mechanical bosses at Pegram Shops in Atlanta. He wasted no time in makng the swap. Of course, it was fortuitous because Southern was looking for the 630 back. Southern gave Cecil his pick of two Central of Georgia Alco RS-3s in exchange for the two ET&WNC steam locomotives. That didn't set well with ET&WNC engineers and shopmen, because of the TITWAD principle (This is the way we always did it). However, I expect that soon the engineers didn't know it could be so good as running diesels.

At Perry, on the LOP&G during those early days when Cecil was Master Mechanic, I was agent and Cecil had a desk in the station office, along with me. I was on the track side, and he was on the street side. Cecil could cuss a blue streak, as the saying goes. I didn't like it because it was foreign to me. However, we were friends and I tolerated it. Whether my not responding in kind had any influence on him, I will probably never know.

He was a good mechanical man. Once he and a local diesel mechanic, who the LOP&G had hired as road foreman of engines of the LOP&G, tore down one of the 70-tonners to the base frame, and built it back with new parts, all under a shade tree.

After Earl Durden's Rail Management Company bought the ET&WNC, Cecil became the diesel guru for all of Earl's railroads. Later on, Earl made him general manger of the Georgia Central which had all GE locomotives. I visited with him in Vidalia about 1996-97. I learned later that Cecil had affiliated with the Methodist Church in Vidalia, I assume, but I never saw him again. When Earl Durden sold to Genessee & Wyoming they let Cecil go and he died at 79 less than a year later with cancer.

Cecil did a good days work when he got those two Alcos, both for the ET&WNC, and for Southern Railway, and today we still have these wonderful images of No. 630.

Russell Tedder - August 2012 correspondence