Eastern Railroad Discussion > 30 minutes with the Blue Ridge Southern

Last weekend, my wife, daughter, and I were wrapping up a week-long vacation in Asheville, NC.  While our agenda throughout the week did not allow for much rail photography, I got the OK to "railfan our way home", which meant I could shoot some trains along the way as long as we made it home to PA that night.  After consulting with a couple of local railfans, I was told that an easy target would be the Blue Ridge Southern RR T31 job, which departs eastbound out of Canton, NC like clockwork around 10:30am.  So we arrived in Canton around 10am just as the crew finished building their outbound train.  A quick break in the crew office allowed them to gather up their paperwork, and sure enough, they were on the pull pretty darn close to 10:30 as advertised.  I easily shot this train at 3 locations, and by 11am we were on the highway heading north!  T31 works the former Southern/NS T-Line east to Asheville, and returns in the afternoon.  

Pic 1 - Just underway out of Canton Yard, BLU train T31 looks like a model train next to the massive Evergreen Packaging paper mill in town.
Pic 2 - Only a mile or two out of Canton, the EMD dynamics howl as the engineer eases the 18 car train down a 3+ percent grade and over the East Canton trestle.
Pic 3 - T31 glides through the western NC wilderness near Candler, NC.

Look for an additional post later with another great catch further up the road towards home.  Enjoy!

Jon 

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Three great catches. My favorite is number two with the locomotives riding high above John's Place.
Bob

They almost closed the Canton paper mill about ten years ago. Is that the only big customer on that line?

Nice catches! Looks like a public road goes right to the engine facility in the background.

The Canton mill is by far the largest customer. Evergreen Packaging now owns the mill and it's quite busy. BLU runs two jobs daily (T31 and T33) to support the mill.

There are other small customers along the line as well, but the mill is by far the largest.

Grady
Asheville,Nc


SpeederDriver Wrote:
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> They almost closed the Canton paper mill about ten
> years ago. Is that the only big customer on that
> line?

Posted from iPhone

I have Sat Mapped that line on numerous occasions ... i'd like to see the Biltmore Estate and check out that line ...

Nice pics Jon.....

Thats a nice, simple and good looking paint scheme. Thanks for sharing!

Posted from iPhone

Sadly in photo three I see the tagging gang are even making into the country these days.

Nice pics!!