A little about the real route. The Lineville sub of current day CSX stretches 201 miles from Manchester, Ga to Birmingham, Al. Out of the three territories I covered, this route was by far my favorite, even with it offering the worst trip times of them all. You hear a lot of people talking about the impressiveness of Cajon Pass or Horse Shoe curve, but in my book, Lineville sub was a hidden gem no one knew about. The route is a mountainous one with multiple heavy grades, yes we had mountains in Alabama and Georgia.
We ran along rivers, through broad valleys and narrow canyons. In my opinion the scenery was absolutely spectacular.Anyway, back to the modeled portion. I'm currently working on recreating the route from Standing Rock, Al, to the Tallapoosa River, in Alabama as well. So far roughly 20 miles of main have been put on the ground but only a few very small stretches have scenery. So on to the screenshots.
Its roughly 1990, could easily be the early 80s as well but since our reporting marks are CSX, we'll go with 90. We're on the Talladega switcher, A714, heading south. Our power for the day is two former SCL GP38-2s.
In our first picture we're passing the 5,900 foot siding at Blake Alabama. If you want to find a remote location, then Blake is your place as there is really no good way in or out. Sounds like a great place to put a siding huh? Blake represents on of your typical Lineville sub sidings being non-bonded, 10 mph.
After passing Blake we finally reach the KC chip mill at Dickert Alabama. Since Dickert is just a wide spot in the road, and the nb approach to Blake, not much is going on here other than pulling the loads out of the plant while holding on to the empties we brought with us and picked up out of the storage track.
After setting our loads out on the main, spotting 6 empties in the mill, we shove the remainder back in the storage track. This area still needs the mill to be added as well as a defect detector just south of the road crossing.
Engineers view while shoving past the loads on the main.
Shove complete and waiting to pick up our loads.
Guiding our power back to a coupling.
Finally heading south to Roanoke. Since we delayed in the block we'll have to run restricted speed all the way to the intermediate at High Pine.
Here's a render of the old depot I am working on for Roanoke Alabama. Unfortunately it burned to the ground during the mid to late 2000s.
I have a lot of good memories growing up and playing in that depot. I'll post a few real shots of the route from the cab, in the next post.
A few more miles and it was home away from home.
