A freight train will soon pass over the Eastern Continental Divide near Old Fort for the first time since Hurricane Helene slammed Western North Carolina a year and a half ago.
The train will snake through a series of tunnels and switchbacks built more than 145 years ago up and over a gap in the mountains once thought impossible to conquer by rail. The straight-line distance up the mountain from near Old Fort to Swannanoa Gap is about 3 miles; the Old Fort Loops, as this section of railroad is known, twists and turns for 9 miles before emerging from the final tunnel at Ridgecrest.
That rugged mountain terrain made the rail line especially vulnerable to Helene, which dropped 2 feet or more of rain on the mountains in a matter of hours. Landslides and flooding destroyed tracks belonging to three railroads throughout the region. The Old Fort Loops proved the most challenging to rebuild and will be the last to reopen.
Alan Johnson, who oversaw the rebuilding as Norfolk Southern’s chief engineer for design and construction, said when he walks along the tracks that sometimes double back on themselves he appreciates what it took to build the Old Fort Loops in the 1870s…