Don't know how many have seen this video, but it is pretty good. The rails on the grade are rusty now, Melrose is a washout, the tracks cut at Landrum. I enjoyed many years of watching, chasing and listening to the radio as they worked the grade. When you watch this video, notice the man on the tractor bush hogging right at the sign marking the end of the timing section. That is Charles Pearson Sr. (deceased). He fired Sante Fe's on the grade before he became a NC State Highway Patrolman. His Great Grandfather, Captain Charles Pearson, CSA, was credited with surveying the existing route. There has been some questions raised lately about that, but he was rewarded with 1000 acres in Saluda by the Governor of NC for his work at the time. My good friend, Chip Pearson, Charles Sr's son, home was just before the runaway track, his dad cutting the field on the other side of the track from their homestead. Chip, his uncle, and cousin, led the engineer through the woods to his 'F' locomotive around his mangled train, at the runaway of November 1964. Actually, the uncle cut the engine off on the lead unit which was still running at idle, and as the 3 of them walked back, met the lost engineer who was trying to figure out how to get to the loco. They lead him through the woods to his engine. The 'Trains' magazine November 1984, article about the grade, the three of them are given a mention as, "...I (the engineer) met a bystander who said he knew a path around the wreck". Chip's uncle is quite adament that the Trains article was wrong, in it's reporting of all units except the lead were running, insisting all units were off except the lead.
Check it out:
