Stories, Tales and Yarns

While working for the Southern Railway in 1898 at the young age of 21, Goodin was trying to throw the switch by using the old and ancient switch which had a mounted target.  He got hold of the target and was trying to throw the switch by turning the target.   He was told there was a lever for that purpose.

After being promoted to Conductor in 1901, he was not too familiar with the passing tracks and sidings.  He had instructions to place three cars in a spur track.  The head brakeman informed him there was only room for one car.  When Goodin relayed this information to the dispatcher he was told, "you have your instructions."  Goodin proceeded to place the three cars, but in doing so, shoved two other cars over the end.  Goodin said, "They ran me off for that."

The following are stories collected by John D. Goodin, son of T. E. Goodin, for a presentation and nomination to the Clinchfield Hall of Fame.  

______

When T. E. Goodin first joined the Southern Railway, a railroad crossing bordered the Goodin family farm on the northeast side.  This became known as "Buttermilk Crossing" as Mrs. Goodin would deliver food to the various sons working the train.  They made sure it stopped at the crossing long enough for them to load up.

Goodin shared a couple of stories with D. H. Hendrix when he was presented with his Fifty-Year Service Pin.

______

One day in 1901, Goodin swung onto the caboose as it was leaving, and walked into the cab to find a man seated and holding a heavy caliber pistol.  When Goodin questioned his purpose for being on the train he said, "My name is Hatfield. One of the McCoys has killed my brother and I am going home and this is the quickest way for me to get to Middlesboro."  Goodin's reply was, "Make yourself comfortable."

______

Goodin had the reputation of never backing down from a situation.  On one occasion two enginemen were having an argument, when one drew a pistol to shoot the other.  Goodin stepped in front of him and said, "you'll have to shoot me first."  The holder of the pistol said, "Daddy, I can't shoot you," and handed over the pistol.

On another occasion he got word that six men were going to jump him at Unicoi when the train stopped.  He knocked them down, one at a time, but suffered a cut across his back when a woman, who was with the men, swung around him.

______

Goodin also had the reputation of helping people.  Numerous stories from colleagues, passengers, superiors, and strangers attest to his kindness and generosity.

Claude Craig Morgan was the first man to run a train from Johnson City to Altapass when that section of the Clinchfield was completed.  T. E. Goodin was Conductor.

I ran the first locomotive and the first passenger train from Johnson City to Altapass. In those days the newly built railroad was very dangerous to run a train over. There were frequent rock and dirt slides coming down off the hills and mountains, which would completely cover the track and would stop all trains from passing for days. The trestles were often made unsafe by heavy rains and flash floods that would weaken or wash them out altogether. All of the locomotives were equipped with old-fashioned oil-burning headlights, which made the track ahead visible for only a few feet and running at night was very risky. We ran the trains at a speed of twenty miles per hour through semi-darkness not knowing at what moment we would run into a slide or washout. But it was a risk we had to take in the early days of the Clinchfield. I had the engine everyone called "Old Huldy". It was remarkable that first trip up the river from Johnson City to Altapass, to see the way people would gather in large crowds to get a glimpse of their first locomotive.

______

Most engineers had their own engine, and everybody tried to blow a whistle their own way. Each wanted his own version of a whistle blow so folks would know it was them coming through. Some of 'em could blow pretty good and some of us couldn't. Bob, he was a funny feller. Everything he said was funny. He made a bootleg whistle and installed it in his cab. One night he went down through South Carolina and long about 4:00 in the morning he began to blow his new whistle. Bob was a blowing a certain song and when he got back, there were about 30 people called up or wrote letters to the superintendent about him waking 'em all up down in South Carolina blowing that whistle. He called Bob in to his office and gave him 10 demerits for blowing the whistle. Bob said to the superintendent, I didn't know you was going to give me 10 demerits, for blowing the whistle, heck, I just blowed one verse. If I'd know'd you was going to give me 10 demerits, I'd a played the whole damn song.

____________

The old locomotives did not have a speedometer. There was no way of knowing how fast you was going except to watch how long it took you to go from one mile post to another. You could then figure out your speed by using your watch seeing how long it took to travel a mile.

_____________

Here in Erwin back in the early days, the North-bound passenger train came through here about 4:30 in the afternoon. On Sunday afternoons, people started gathering down there at the depot about 3:00. They would get together and socialize. They wanted to be there when the train came in. Everyone wanted to see who was getting off and who was getting on. You see, the railroad at that time was your sole connection to the outside world. Train time was the event of the day.

T. E. Goodin was a type of pioneer on the railroad, as he was privileged to experience many firsts.  The account below gives an historical glimpse as to what Goodin saw on his many trips across the Blue Ridge Mountains.

In 1908, an account of the first trip across the Blue Ridge mountains was made by Colonel Fred A. Olds, of the North Carolina Historical Commision, in the Charlotte Observer. The full story may be read in The Clinchfield Railroad: The Story of a Trade Route Across the Blue Ridge Mountains, Crossing the Blue Ridge, by William Way, Jr., housed in the Archives of Appalachia.

Here is an excerpt of his observations:

I put down yesterday as a day of days in my life experience, barring seven of the officials of the Carolina, Clinchfield & Ohio Railway, I was the first to make the trip over its mountain division, of which the world knows so little, and about which the first newspaper story is to be told.  This railway in cloudland is one of the most remarkable in this country, both in point of engineering and construction.

And now for the story of a remarkable day's journey.  We left Asheville early in the morning, in a faint drizzle of rain, climbed the high grade of the Blue Ridge to the Swannanoa tunnel and then went down the mountain to Marion.

A special train, the construction train, was put at my disposal.  It was a real pleasure to board the train, which consisted of an engine and a couple of flats.  We sat on one end of the flat car, with the engine backing us up the mountain, and it was not long before the wonders of the new line began to unfold themselves and the daring nature of the construction became apparent.  We were climbing up almost from the start of our journey.

The charm of doing something new is all-pervading.  I rather ranked myself with Columbus, the Conquistadores, Daniel Boone, or any of the great 'path-finders.'  I was seeing North Carolina at its grandest.  The cloud forms were grand.  They bend down sometimes like curtains, or they cover in masses the tops of the ridge, which at the topmost tunnel is 2,628 feet above sea level.

The first tunnel is Honeycutts, and its length is 1,650 feet.  At the entrance a beautiful waterfall, which splashed as we rolled by it.  Streams rush and roar, their noise being heard whenever the train stops.  At Linville Falls, a valley is pointed out, up which the route to those beautiful falls lies.  Mount Mitchell is visible, eighteen miles away, at least.

Here and there, tiny sawmills, with slides scoring the mountainsides.  There was splendid looking timber in the mountain coves and plenty of chestnuts, while the valley looked fertile. 

Tunnel after tunnel was passed. We had climbed above most of the clouds. The trees seemed to be bigger.  We were looping the loop.  We were near the crest of the Blue Ridge.  We had won the heights. Ahead loomed the portal of the supreme tunnel, outlined by a lantern.  We roared through it, the puffing of the engine reverberating.  The little train rattled into Alta Pass, solely the creation of the railway.

Up a rugged slope to the big modern hotel [Alta Pass Inn] we went and sat down to a typically good supper at 8 o'clock, served by Mrs. Campbell.  After that, rest, with dreams of endless tunnels, of railways which wriggled clear up in the sky and stayed there; or crystal streams tumbling in waterfalls.

Napoleon said, 'Beyond the Alps lie Italy.'  It was enough for his troops.  They climbed these Alps.  All this they did, and far more the Carolina, Clinchfield & Ohio Railway has done.  It has made the most wonderful crossing of these North Carolina Alps of ours.  In the coming years, tourists will see here new revelations of the Land of the Sky, and new opportunities will be opened to all the world.  Roaring trains of coal will be whirled to the lower levels. A plan which has lurked in some great minds a score of years, perhaps, is almost complete. All through the panic the work has gone on on this great road, which is indeed monumental in conception and execution.

On the journey to Johnson City, the Toe River was to be our companion for full fifty miles.  The run was densely bordered with rhododendron.  The 'Rhododendron Route' is peculiarly fitting.  The scenery on the north side is grand, like that on the south side.  The Gorge is simply overwhelming in its grandeur.  The hemlocks were thick and stately in the extreme; the Toe River, full of rocks, swift and turbulent and bordered by clifts in most places.  Cosy little cottages, mills, log cabins, picturesque bridges and telegraph wires spanned the river.  The panorama is easily the most picturesque I have seen in the mountains.  Great numbers of graceful, dark green Carolina poplars, much black basaltic rock, steep hillside farming, and the loft summit of Pumpkin Patch Mountain was seen.

Toecave is the last tunnel between Alta Pass and Johnson City, 23 miles from the former.  Fruit trees loaded with apples, grapes in full bearing, tobacco, grass and corn, and in the most impossible places, picturesque cottages galore; these were sights we saw continuously.  

At Unaka the landscape changes: softens exceedingly.  There are spreading fields.  The land flattens.  It is fertile and good to look at.  There is a grand view of the valley toward North Carolina.  The porter gravely announced Johnson City and as we cross a narrow-gauge railway it is pointed out as the line to Cranberry iron mines in the corner of Mitchell County.  

At Johnson City station was an alfalfa field and a plant of leather trust and the neatest, cutest, and tiniest, Y.M.C.A. I ever saw, in a box car, painted bright yellow with a little portico and flowers fairly shedding forth an air of welcome.  It was labelled 'Railway Y.M.C.A.'  I saw a field sown in peas.

I had the pleasure of meeting most of the officers of the C.C.&O. at the handsome general offices.  They were courteous to the last degree, and very obliging.  I told them of my trip over and they were warm in their congratulations.

This concluding story of an eventful journey is written for those who are to follow after.  They will see much, perhaps far more than it was given these eyes of mine to see, but they will never cherish anything more dear than this maiden voyage over the C. C. & O.

Claude Morgan, who began working on the railroad at the age of eighteen, was a colleague of T. E. Goodin, both having the privilege of making many of the first runs with the Clinchfield.  In an interview with Ralphy H. Connelly of The Tri-County News, on August 25, 1953, he shared memories of his years on the railroad. His stories relay invaluable insight into the life of T. E. Goodin.  While expressing the dangers of the early days (see The Clinchfield), Morgan recollects the excitement and pure joy of the people in rural communities upon the arrival of the train. "All along the way people would gather in crowds to see their first locomotive." Many walked for miles to see this "iron horse" make its way up the mountain.  In the distance they could hear the shrill whistle as the train approached.  Swirling clouds of steam rose from the smoke stack.  "There were old men present with stately looking beards, young farmers wearing overalls and straw hats.  The women mostly had on gingham dresses and wore high hats set on top of heavy heads of hair.  Most of the women had small children, who had come out to see the train.  It was a great day for everybody who got to see a train for the first time."  Connelly reminisces about his memories of "the clanging brass bell, the swirling, escaping steam, the oily smell of the journal grease, the satiny red plush of the coach seats, and the lingering wisps of black smoke in the valley."

Morgan further expounded on the experiences of trainmen.  "Wherever we stopped they had road camps ready for us to eat and sleep.  We always got good meals in the camps and good bunks to sleep on at night.  And so, that part of the old days on the Clinchfield was as good as we could have found anywhere we might have been railroading.

George L. Carter was behind everything pushing the work at top speed.  He was a tall man, who knew how to handle men and could get a lot of work done quickly.  He smoked cigars and did not have much to say unless it became necessary and then he could say plenty."