Eastern Railroad Discussion > An Old ACL Monument Lost In Tall Weeds

A Trip To The CSX Lineville Sub & Highland Alabama


Recently my curiosity kicked in after reading one of the last commentary articles written by Don Phillips before he departed TRAINS “The Lineville Subdivision is growing” (March 2018 Issue) I suggested to a group of folks that we head over to Lineville / Highland Alabama and see what the area had to offer for photo locations. What interest me the most was mention in the article of a huge concrete monument that marks the highest elevation point on the old ACL Birmingham / Manchester mainline that runs through Lineville and Highlands. We didn't have much to go on and a member of the group did some research. A reliable source told him it was about a half mile west of station NE Lineville, mile post ANJ 882.4. That was all we had to go on. So with no more information then that, off to Lineville and the Talladega National Forest the group of six of us headed to the CSX Lineville Sub.

What we eventually learned is this monument is not located in an easy access location for public viewing. We were about to give up when a member of the group spotted it looking south off the Clay County Rd #31 bridge. And correctly labeled by Don Phillips as a “huge concrete monument” it appears a pine tree has recently fallen covering up some of the markings on the monument from the only viewing location we found. But a member of the group, Travis Taylor who works for Virtual Railfan LLC broke out the big lens and managed to capture a photo of this historical piece of old railroad history. Thinking about it, perhaps best it is located where it is!!

As to double tracking this line as indicated in the article I'm not so sure that is going to happen anytime soon. And based on the amount of traffic on Saturday morning, not so sure it is required as we only caught one south bounder and missed another before we headed north out of Talladega to the NS East End District up in Lincoln Alabama.

#1. Captured by Travis Taylor the old ACL monument marking the highest point on the line at 1,119ft on the eastern edge of the Talladega National Forest.

#2. CSX Q181 BNSF Memphis TN / CSX Fairburn GA south bound stack on the Lineville Sub just north of downtown Lineville Alabama.

Phil Maton
Villa Rica, GA

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Interesting story and well-done photo.
Bob

Hats off to the 'search party' and to Travis for the photo and to you for the text. I remembered reading Don's article but forgot the elevation which you so thoughtfully included.

Phil,
Our magazine,"Lines South" has articles about this.

Uncle Joe
Seffner,fl.

Looks like a good outing, Phil. I'd like to see more
-DJS

Does anyone have dimensions of the marker? Just a few for reference, such as the height and width of a side, or of the sign, that would help me build a decent scale model.
I have some approximations, but would really appreciate some solid data.
Thanks,
Jim Sapienza



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/21/18 03:34 by trainwreck22.

Looks like you could have hiked in from Highland Road.