Today is the 100th anniversary of what at the time was America's worst ever train wreck.WBIR TV10 News did a story showing how the New Market Elementary school near the wreck site observed the anniversary today.They took the kids in hay wagons to lay some flowers in remembrance of thw victims.In the video there was no sign of a railroad track and the reporter ended the story with "the railtracks are long gone and the site is now a family farm".Apparently the school kids could not be taken near the Norfolk Southern tracks because the wreck site is still a busy piece of railroad,on the Knoxville to Bristol and Asheville,NC route. For history about the wreck see http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?nesi ... 9365&rfi=6

Try an internet search using"New Market Wreck". The wreck was a head-on collison between a Southern Railway local passenger train and the Carolina Special.

Southern Railroad relocated the tracks between Morristown and Knoxville (I think during the 1930's) for improved drainage and to level out the grade. The place where the wreck actually occured is now in the middle of a hay field not even in view of the modern tracks.
A funny note: several Civil War artifact hunters have told me they always hunt for artifacts along railroad tracks because "railroad tracks never move, they are always right where they have always been". Well...not always.

I have railfanned this area for years and always thought certain places looked liked it could have been a former railroad grade but never imagined it actually was.I can't find any info on the track upgrades by searching the web,but would think it was done around 1924 when the Asheville line by-passed downtown Morristown with construction of an all new line on what was then the southwest outskirts of town.In Morristown there is still New Line Road where the line left the Knoxville-Bristol line and the community where the new line joined the original Asheville line is still called Roe Junction.

Do you know when the tracks from downtown Morristown to Roe Junction were abandoned?I know about half of it was in place as a spur to serve an industry until sometime in the 1980s.But when did the last passenger train run and the line cut.I lived in Morristown when a fire destroyed the old wooden highway overpass on the former line near downtown about 10 years ago.I think it was built in the 1920s.

I do not know the date the line was cut. Your recollections are about the same as mine, there was a scrap yard at the end of the line that used the siding occasionally. The SR steam program would use the wye to turn the 4501 during weekday school trips. I would think that it was cut at Roe Junction about the same time A) the depot downtown was torn down and B) the modern depot out West was built. I am to understand these occured during urban renewal so let us guess 1963 or so? Anybody got a better grip on when urban renewal projects occured?
A huge loss was the old M&CG RR (or K&B RR) mainline that was still in place North of town until NS abandonned it fairly recently. That would have made a great small scale operating museum. Another big loss was the Jefferson City depot (brick, formerly ETV&G ?) that was raized a while back. Jefferson City was to fault there, would not negotiate with the NS from what I understand.

The city of Morristown recently got a transportation funds grant from TDOT to build a greenway trail from downtown to Cherokee Lake along Turkey Creek and the former K&B right of way.Unforunatly the right of way is now blocked by the new city hall downtown,as of two years ago a small white wood frame building was still standing near the former K&B terminal area.Although it does not look it,I once read that a local historian thought this was the station for K&B.It is directly behind city hall.

Somewhere here I have a Sanborn Fire Map that might answer that question, but I cannot lay my hands on it immediatly. I will scratch around a little bit on that one.