Old Fort Train Station

n the summer, I would take the train to visit my grandparents in Hendersonville. My favorite part was across Swannanoa Gap. Often when the train stopped at the Old Fort Depot, school children would scramble on with bag lunches for a field trip up the mountain. As the train entered each of the seven tunnels, we heard squeals and screams throughout the passenger cars. During winter, long icicles glistened on the tunnel walls. The last passenger train stopped at Old Fort Depot in 1975.

Kay Fetner — Carolina Country

uilt in 1879 as a tourism attraction, Andrews Geyser was an eye-catching site for visitors reaching Old Fort by train during the late 19th century. It was part of the property surrounding the Round Knob Hotel. The geyser was named to honor the president of the Western North Carolina Railroad, Alexander Boyd Andrews, and is situated on the banks of Mill Creek, a designated trout stream between the upper railroad bridge and the U.S. Highway 70 bridge. One of two N.C. Civil War Trail Markers is located here noting one of the last skirmishes of the Civil War in April of 1865.

Visit North Carolina

If you have never been to the Loops, I regret that you've never had the experience. It is a section of railroad built to twist, wind, and curl from the foothills of the rolling Carolina Piedmont to the summit of the Blue Ridge. It follows Mill Creek to a point marked by railroad-made Andrews Geyser, where three loops clime the mountain and trains on High Fill tower over the tracks directly below. Then, it's tunnel after tunnel to the top, six of them in total, four of them in rapid-fire succession, and one at the summit, Swannanoa Tunnel, directly beneath Interstate 40, that is more than 1,800 feet in length. It's a model railroad come to life. The tunnels and bridges carry the rails to the summit at appropriately named Ridgecrest. This was the land of 2-10-2s on freights, 4-8-2s on passenger trains, and whole lot of diesel horsepower for almost 70 years. It's been retainers and dynamics on the downhill and reducing tonnage and breaking knuckles or pulling drawbars on the climb. Years before distributed power units became widespreadm Southern used mid-train units here. This route is crowned with mountain views, and nature at every bend. Bears and deer. Lavender rhododendron and flame azalea galore in the spring, a rainbow of colors in the fall.

Jim Wrinn — "Carolina Crossing Curtailed" — TRAINS Magazine — Sep 2020