RAILDEPOT.COM A FORAY INTO KENTUCKY

Editors note: In 1988 Steve Worboys, Jeff Oaks and Jeff's wife Rossella took a trip to southeast Virginia and Kentucky for a nail hunt. Below is an article that Steve wrote about the trip. Steve's article first appeared in Nailer News, the newsletter of the Texas Date Nail Collectors' Association.

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For an excellent introduction to date nails you can find a link to Jeff's website at the end of this article, along with links to issues of Nail Notes ( Jeff's newsletter ) and how to get in touch with Steve or Jeff.

In 1988 Jeff Oaks and I had our best nailing year ever. To put a fitting cap on it we concocted a scheme to hit the Louisville & Nashville, the Interstate and, time permitting, some sequestered branch of the Norfolk & Western in the mountains of southwest Virginia and southeast Kentucky. I promised my wife that we'd be back in 36 hours. Jeff and Rossella arrived in Fairfax the night of December 26th, after some uneventful DL&W nailing in eastern Pennsylvania. On the 27th we bought some topographic maps, and mopped up the remaining 09s I had left behind on the B&O branch in the District[1]. We headed south, the three of us, at six o'clock on the 28th.

Jeff Oaks' book, Date Nails and Railroad Tie Preservation can be purchased on his web site.

We reached Abingdon at about 2:30, on the heels of a sluggish drive through wind, rain, and Lynchburg. After gassing up we decided to salvage the afternoon and nail right there at Abingdon, though our goal was still distant Big Stone Gap. We investigated the N&W bed two miles east of town at a place called Watauga. The temperature had dropped, and it was snowing slightly. Rossella and I had colds, so we bundled up.

The rails are cleared away now, and the bed is a public trail (the "Virginia Creeper" Trail). Ties are scarce, and badly decayed. However, there are three wood trestles in a short distance from the road. The tops are planked over, and handrails have been added; nothing else has been changed. We had never encountered an N&W timber trestle before, so we were in for a treat. Other hobbyists had already yanked here with great industry---tough beans for us! Still, it was fun to pull such nails as remained, from all those pilings, supports, and other do-dads which make up a wooden bridge. We found in one trestle two then-prized round raised (10) 25s[2], as well as a third from a removed timber in the ravine. In the next one, which was virtually picked clean, two new nails awaited us---a narrow date cut 42[3], and a round raised (05) 46, undoubtedly a Virginian RR cast-off, or keg mix up[4]. In the third bridge nothing interesting was left.

We pulled 31 nails in all from these trestles. A few are still there to be had, if you can reach them. One is driven in the bottom of a bridge tie about thirteen feet from the ground. We couldn't read it, but it is square---and probably mint state.

At Drowning Ford, more to the southeast, a cold and energetic creek blasts through the cut where the railroad once ran alongside. Almost nothing remains except a couple waterlogged old ties, wedged in the slimey rocks on the edge of the rapids. We didn't linger here. At sunset, which was rosy and cheerful, we hopped back on the interstate and drove all the way to Kingsport, TN, ate a pizza, and put up in a cheap motel. Here, in the parking lot, we copped the only two nails we have from the state of Tennessee---and, considering who lives there, perhaps the only two left!---two SWP switch nails[5].

We rolled at 6:30 the following morning. It was very cold, but crisp and clear, with highs predicted in the 40s. We drove for the coal-bearing hinterlands of Virginia and Kentucky, by way of Big Stone Gap. On route 160, near Inman, a man flagged us down and told us about a jack-knived truck ahead, that would tie up the road at least an hour. So we simply reversed ourselves, returned to Big Stone Gap, then grabbed Route 38 toward Harlan, KY.

NOTES:

[1] The Baltimore & Ohio used nails only in special test sections (except for 57s & 58s), and Steve had stumbled onto a 1909 test in the District of Columbia in 1985. Every tie there had a B&O 09. [back]

[2] Steel companies marked the shanks of their nails in such a way that the manufacturer can be identified. Nail collectors have devised a shorthand scheme for identifying nails. (04) = a nail made by Republic Steel Co. These nails have a "V" on the shank above the anchors. (07) = American Steel & Wire Co. (with a diamond), etc. [back]

[3] A cut nail is made like old square nails---these are not wire nails. The N&W was the most prolific user of cut date nails. [back]

[4] This is not an N&W nail, but it was used by the Virginian. Probably, after the N&W took over the Virginian, the timber was reused by the N&W in the bridge at Watauga. [back]

[5] Dave Parmalee has been collecting nails since the early 1970's, and he has walked an incredible number of miles of track. He lives in Tennessee. The treatment company Southern Wood Piedmont drove nails into the ends of overlength ties to indicate length. For example, a 14 over 6 was placed in a tie 14 feet 6 inches long. This is so that when the ties are installed at switches, it is easy for workmen to place the ties in the right order. [back]

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