Bote's PartialCSX Rail Sounds & Stuff

Bote's Web Nexus - featuring slim pages on radios, railfanning, and roadgeeking.

Updated 2005.10.14

Sounds

Sounds are compressed using mpeg2 layer 3 format. Your basic .mp3 files.

Classic JCC

“JCC” is an old-time Atlantic Coast Line railroader who dispatches the CSX AU desk on 2nd trick. He never hesitates to let it be known when he sees something that makes no sense, is inefficient, or just plain pisses him off. He is close to retirement so we have captured a few of these gems to relish in the glory of his staunch independence on the radio. The newbies simply do not compare.

Long Day — 2 hours to go 12 miles...MAN! (120KB)

Extra Pleasure — JCC is busier than a one-eyed cat at a fish fry as a maintenance of way curfew has the tracks good and bolloxed up; “do y'all take some kind of extra pleasure in dropping that bucket on the rail like that?” Noto bene how many cars and engines D742 has. (740KB)

The Boss Lays Down the Law — JCC lets maintenance-in-the-way know who's boss on his railroad and orders them out of the way unless somebody who draws more money than he does comes down there and tells him not to do so. And that's that! This was recorded at 12:22, about 20 minutes after the maintainer's authority expired. (207KB)

Take A Nap — JCC wants Doubs back from maintainers. They thought they would have work to do, he thought he could run trains. He wins, tells them to take a nap for 45 minutes. (96KB)

Maps, Tour Guides, Stuff

These maps are taken from DeLorme Street Atlas version 9, which shows most railroad placenames and mainline track. It is not to be trusted, however, as there are numerous errors, so use these only as a rough guide.

The maps do not consume much disk space, but they are huge on your display, unless you run 1280 x 960 pixel dimensions on your computer. This is what I run and anything less cut out enough detail that I opted not to cut them down to a smaller size. If you do not want to save them to your computer, you might want to open them in a new window so that you can keep this index page open. Enjoy.

CSX Pope's Creek & Herbert subdivisions

Plain map with no roads depicted, but with annotations.

Fancy map with roads overlayed over the above map, no annotations though.

CSX Clinchfield Maps

Spartanburg, South Carolina to Elkhorn City, Tennessee

The Bote Man™ will load up the Superior Railfanning Platform and embark on the Clinchfield, Dayton, B&O, ACL/SAL and Southern (Rail)Road Trip to see what there is to see. The following maps serve as a guide. There will be no photographs of this trip. This is pure train chasing and traveling enjoyment without the burden of “missing that great shot”. Ah, the joys of life.

Skipping To The Practical Starting Point Northbound Along the BR (Blue Ridge) Subdivision

Skyline Inn — Perched above the Loops and Blue Ridge mountains; recommended by PeeF, who has stayed there.(48KB)

Spruce Pine to Poplar — You gotta love a railroad that has a place named “Loafer's Glory”! At Red Hill, SR226 turns north, but you want to continue northwest on SR197 to Bailey, Poplar, and ultimately Erwin, TN. Where SR197 veers right to leave the tracks, you can consider following the tracks along the river and then crossing over the tracks at Mr. Peterson's house and following SR1320 back up to Bailey, or you can simply continue on SR197 all the way to Erwin, Tennessee with a brief glance at the tracks near Poplar. Legend holds that Mr. Peterson worked for the railroad in the signal department. (37KB)

Copper Creek Trestle — After visiting Erwin yard, the former headquarters of the Clinch, many recommend blasting past Johnson City and Kingsport to get the long way around Gate City, Virginia and over to Copper Creek trestle, where N.S. follows the low grade and the Clinch shoots across above it all. Both railroads share trackage rights here, so you will see a mix of trains on both tracks. N.S. tracks run under Natural Tunnel, but continue up SR65 to follow the Clinchfield. (59KB)

St. Paul — Follow SR65 up to U.S.58, following the tracks the whole way along the river. U.S.58 takes you up to St. Paul where you will find an interchange with N.S. at “Boody” on the east side of town. You are now entering serious coal country. (52KB)

Dante — Leaving St. Paul on SR63, visit Dante, Trammel, Nora, and McClure. (50KB)

Haysi — At Clinchco take SR83 to follow the tracks up to Haysi. On the other side of Haysi go left onto SR80 to head to Breaks Interstate Park. (48KB)

Breaks — Breaks Interstate Park is known as the “Grand Canyon of the East”. You can go into the park and hike the several overlooks to see various portions of the railroad snaking like an H.O. scale model set through the gorge far below. Some recommend stopping around the far side of the park where SR80 makes a sharp right; park in the small pull-off that holds 3-4 cars and hike down to Pool Point to see the tracks on both ends of a tunnel. If you have just had an argument with your girlfriend or a falling out with your wife we cannot recommend this place as there is a “Lover's Leap” there; we will not be held responsible. Elkhorn City, the north end of the Clinch, is a short drive away. From there north you enter Chesapeake and Ohio territory, which U.S.23 parallels nicely. Enjoy! (28KB)

CSX (ex-WM) Thomas, Henry, Stony River subdivision maps

Overview map — crude, but effective, map showing the line following North Branch Potomac River from Luke, MD down to Bayard, WV, including the Stony River subdivision up to Mt. Storm power station. Roads are omitted for clarity; see the detail maps below for access roads. (60KB)

Biggs block — Twenty-First Bridge to Biggs around Keyser, W.Va.

Poland block — Poland to Hampshire, including Westernport, Luke, and Bloomington as well as CSX Mountain sub bridge over ex-WM line, now the Thomas subdivision. I'm curious what that abandoned line across the river in Maryland used to be; Cumberland and Potomac maybe?

Hampshire block — showing Jennings Randolph Lake from Folly Run down past Four Corners.

Manor block — showing area surrounding Kitzmiller, MD including double track and start of Wall block.

Wall block — almost totally inaccessible inside Potomac State Forest, except for Laurel Run Rd.; Wallman Rd. and Steyer Gorman Rd. run parallel for a couple miles, if the map is to be believed.

Bayard — Gorman to Wilson including the start of Stony River subdivision and Sincel Industrial Track up to Metikki Mine.

Stony River sub — zoomed out one level to show entire Stony River sub up to Mount Storm Lake power station.

CSX "Happy Future" Locomotive Paint

CSX4739 — happy to be pulling intermodal loads (140KB)

Bote's Web Nexus - featuring slim pages on radios, railfanning, and roadgeeking.