The Cave Cove Bridge
The Cave cove bridge is even more insane than it appears. The original inspiration was those arched truss bridges the Union prefabbed durring the civil war. The passing sidding @ Terrapin was once too small for two five car trains to pass. This was a big problem, as it was , and is , the only passing siding on the mountain. believe it or not ( photo's will follow) the terrain uphill from Terrapin is Sander's Ridge, visible in the pictures, Sander's gorge, and Perry's gizzard lie beyond that, a horrible twisty tourtured path up an 8.5% grade to Ridgemont Tn./ State Line Ga, and the interchange with the Narrow gauge, which goes eiven further, up to Gegoukayoosa, a shelf Hung off the 45 degree sloped ceiling.
To extend the passing sidding to a usable size I had to cribb in the mountainside. If you look down hill down the tracks in the pictue of the cribbing, you can see the lower end of that crazy passing siding, on an 8.5% grade, out on the Cave Cove bridge. At the lower end of the of the bridge, there is a stub switch!
Needless to say, a slow order is in effect perminantly!
I'll try to add more photos. I still need to find an easier way to size the photo's, as I'm doing it by trial and error @ this time, offten making the images smaller than they need to be.
Bill Neison