Clinchfield Overlook

Clinchfield Overlook. . The railroad below you has a long and tangled history dating back to wagon road surveys ás early as 1831. A north-south route across the Appalachian Mountains for commerce and travel was long sought, but location here was always negated by rugged topography. However, by the 1880's, recognition of the region's abundant coal resources convinced railroad and coal barons that a line was feasible, if not necessary, to develop those deposits. Many railroad companies demonstrated interest in The Breaks, but General John T. Wilder of the Charleston, Cincinnati and Chicago Railroad was first to lay title to property in this area. That company collapsed in 1890, and those rights eventually passed to the South and Western Railway, headed by George Lafayette Carter, and finally to the Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio Railroad,"The Clinchfield Line” The route through The Breaks was completed in 1915, but only after litigation with the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, claiming. prior rights through the gorge in 1902. Those two lines connected at Elkhorn City, Kentucky. Ironically, after many mergers and buyouts; the inheritor of the Chesapeake and Ohio acquired use of the line CSX Transportation, whose coal trains traverse the gorge to this day. At the time of completion, "The Clinchfield” was the costliest American line, per foot, yet built, in no small part due to construction obstacles in The Breaks. Upstream, the 921-foot Towers Tunnel passes under the saddle between the Towers and the Chimney, avoiding the great entrenched meander bend of Russell Fork. Downstream, the 1,523-foot Stateline Tunnel parallels Russell Fork; the gorge wall of the tunnel is only a few feet thick. Further downstream, the track sweeps majestically around Potter Flats and then crosses the river over Pool Point Bridge, which was the longest steel-span bridge in the world for a short time after construction.