October 2023
Too good to be true?
17/10/23 06:10 Filed in: Nelson County | Soapstone in Virginia
The beginning of this saga can be found here.
Even though Phoenix had shut down over 10 years before he was born, Jim had grown up hearing about the operation. He was very specific about the details of the narrow gauge, the remains of which were much more evident when he was young.
Jim said all of the narrow gauge grade he remembered ran immediately adjacent to dirt roads. Along the Tye River the track was on the river side, the road was on the hill side. There the road had been used by trucks to access a gravel pit.
Before the narrow gauge, products from Phoenix Stone were hauled to Arrington by wagon. The wagon road still exists as State Route 661. In all the places around Phoenix that we visited that cold February day, I never noticed any indication of the old narrow gauge grade. Jim told me where it had been, but I saw no sign of it anywhere.
High on bluffs above the Tye River, the ruins of the Phoenix Stone Company — the mill, the quarries, the boilerhouses, the company houses — were very small. That such a small company had built a “sprawling” narrow gauge that ran miles along the river to reach a transfer point with a standard gauge railroad struck me as far fetched. But I let Jim talk, because he was saying exactly what I wanted to hear. He was describing my On30 layout to me.
Even though Phoenix had shut down over 10 years before he was born, Jim had grown up hearing about the operation. He was very specific about the details of the narrow gauge, the remains of which were much more evident when he was young.
Jim said all of the narrow gauge grade he remembered ran immediately adjacent to dirt roads. Along the Tye River the track was on the river side, the road was on the hill side. There the road had been used by trucks to access a gravel pit.
Before the narrow gauge, products from Phoenix Stone were hauled to Arrington by wagon. The wagon road still exists as State Route 661. In all the places around Phoenix that we visited that cold February day, I never noticed any indication of the old narrow gauge grade. Jim told me where it had been, but I saw no sign of it anywhere.
High on bluffs above the Tye River, the ruins of the Phoenix Stone Company — the mill, the quarries, the boilerhouses, the company houses — were very small. That such a small company had built a “sprawling” narrow gauge that ran miles along the river to reach a transfer point with a standard gauge railroad struck me as far fetched. But I let Jim talk, because he was saying exactly what I wanted to hear. He was describing my On30 layout to me.
