Norfolk Southern to add more double track on famed “Rathole”

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Norfolk Southern to add more double track on famed “Rathole”

Doesn’t this railroad run through a naturally occuring cave?

Am I mistaken or did The Southern Railway remove a bunch of double track from this line in the sixties, now they get to put it back?

Am I mistaken or did The Southern Railway remove a bunch of double track from this line in the sixties, now they get to put it back?

How much money does Cincinnati receive annually in lease payments from NS for this line ???

I have read somewhere that the city of Cincinnati receives $19 million a year for leasing the CNO&TP

I can’t remember what the city gets from the lease payments, but it is pretty substantial. Not enough to keep our genius City Council from periodically proposing that we sell it.

Okay, I looked it up. In 2010, the city got $19.5 million in rent.

http://cincinnatisouthernrailway.org/public-information/index.php

I rode N&W 1218 south and 611 north back in, I think it was 1989. What an awsome stretch of territory!

YE 12-31-2010, NS paid $19.55mm directly to the City of Cincinnati, Ohio. Base payment is $11mm plus annual adjustment (IDP-GNP - look it up). NS also pays stipend - $0.1mm base - to the Board of Trustees of Cincinnati Southern Railway to cover administrative expenses. Regular payments are remitted quarterly, other payments as required. Good deal all way 'round.

George, I think you’re thinking about the ex-SOU coal line that runs through Natural Tunnel in Virginia between Duffield, VA and Frisco, TN (the line that runs parallel but much lower than the ex-Clinchfield @ Copper Creek Viaduct). Last I heard that line was part of the Tennessee Division when the Rathole and the rest of the CNO&TP were the Kentucky Division, before the last redrawing of the divisions that eliminated the KY Division.

Re cave, you may be thinking of Natural Tunnel on the Bulls Gap-Big Stone Gap line.

I think SR did remove some double track 50 years ago, I don’t know how much. Of course, part of the alignment from that time is new but there is some old two-track grading left down there.

Natural Tunnel is in southwest Virginia, not on the CNO&TP.

i hope you all know the entire route from washington to new orleans was double track from 1918 to after ww2. so southern has all the ROW needed for double track again and is working on it now incrementally. where feasible ns is staightening curves, assisted by ncdot. dale