A few weeks ago Paula and myself took the Smoky Mountains RR from Dillsboro NC to Bryson NC. It was a four hour round trip with a stop in Bryson to allow you to walk around and also stop in at the lovely train museum there. We decided to take the trip in the fully restored club car which was originally used on the SCL Silver Meteor that ran from NYC to Miami Fl. The car has a bar sofas easy chairs and tables. The club car host was an interesting guy named Rick Oser, that is very knowledgable about the railroad and the surrounding area in the Smoky Mountains where the RR runs. Rick was a true gentleman and a great host. We sent a leeter to management and told them how good he had been to us and he replied with his thanks in an email. Rick told us to send all of our friends his way that will rie the RR and he'll take great care of them. To make a long story short the service and the narration that Rick provided was outstanding. If you decide to ride the railroad and take the club car Rick is the man.
The rail trip takes you through some of the prettiest scenery imaginable along the rivers, over several bridges, through a mile long tunnel, and past small towns and interesting spots.
I have a video that I took of the trip and will try to freeze some frames and import them into my computer so I can post them here. More later

Dennis

Narcoa runs the line all year long. You can free speeder rides this September when they run the rail fest. Tom Falicon was are host there Track super. He was great. Aonther great line to ride.

Here are some photo's I had from Jan 1st run. Did you stop at the Fugative crash site?

Great smokey mountain

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Jamie

Jamie: Absolutely beautiful photos in that album. In your speeder you got to get close to the trackage but in my video, I stood between the cars and took shots along the side that are decent. We did see The Fugitve crash site and it was amazing how they stripped that engine and pushed it into a bus with a GP-7 on a specially built siding no less. I'm surprised that you guys missed the siding that went into the now closed Drexel Heritage furniture factory. It was a large factory but unfortunately the whole factory was closed by the top management and the equipment was shipped off to China to establish manufacturing there. Who cares if 1700 people lost their jobs, not Drexel Heritage for sure. Now I no longer buy that brand of furniture.

It was even a BETTER trip behind the steam loco #1702, which is now disassembled and will probably remain so for an indefinite period of time!

At present, American Heritage Railways is more interested in their Durango and Silverton operation, and has NO plans for steam on the GSMR in the near future!

Thanks Dennis

Unfortunatly I see more and more closed factories as I speeder around. I guess Tenn get the VW plant though. I ran the Tenn. Southern two months ago and saw three large factories closed down.

Jamie