[yarddog]

Not a steam engine but these are waiting to pull a train up the Swannanoah gap between Old Fort and Black Mountain N.C. It is the steepest grade East of the Mississippi for regular trains.

[Navy Patriot]

Here is Southern Railway consolidation 630 leading a triplehead on that grade last year. Note the Tennessee Valley water car, no water on the line anymore.

[Navy Patriot]

Swannanoah is now one of the Norfolk - Southern main lines, being part of Southern Railway before the 1982 merger with Norfolk and Western, and was renamed in 1990.

N&W was one of the premier heavy steam roads in America refining USRA 2-8-8-2 locomotives to their world famous Y6-B compound engines to move the coal that built much of America over similar grades.