Haven't checked this thread in a while; glad to see some interest in the NC&StL. I'm at the other, salt-water end of Alabama, and I know of the NC&StL mostly as a part of the L&N (which appropriated their slogan "The Dixie Line" to join the L&N's "The Old Reliable").
Beautiful locos, the Dixies. With a skyline casing they would be in the same class, esthetically, as the 20th Century and ESE J3 Hudsons, as well as the N&W J 4-8-4's. Bit of NH 4-6-4's there, too.
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RLH:
"D500, I meant to ask you if you knew the line those double heading 4-8-4's were on. I am guessing the Chattanooga to Nashville run and they are doing that to get over the hump of the southern Cumberlands just before the legendary Cowan Tunnel. There were some cool historic bridges and depots on that run like the cantilever bridge over the TN River at Bridgeport, AL and the Bridgeport Depot. To the east there is the bridge over Falling Water Creek near Whiteside, TN."
Per the article in December, 1963 Trains magazine, the photo above of the Dixies (not called "Northerns", seriously) was taken 3/30/46, in Bass, AL, at 70 mph pulling train 94 (the northbound Dixie Flyer) "making time through the Crow Creek Valley, 10 miles out of Sherwood TN, foot of the helper grade up to Cumberland Tunnel".
