Engine 10 loaded on a standard gauge flatcar in Johnson City headed for Alaska in 1942. During the early days of World War II the Japanese army was coming up the Aleutian Islands heading towards Alaska. There was a narrow gauge railroad that ran from the coast of Alaska to the interior, the "White Pass & Yukon". The US Army took it over during the war and took equipment from several US narrow gauge railroads to use during the war. The ET&WNC sent two locomotives, the 10 and 14, and some of the gasoline tank cars they had used to carry gasoline to the distributor in Boone. Both the 10 and 14 were burned up in an engine-house fire near the end of the war and were later scrapped in Washington State. Johnny Graybeal's Book 2 in the "Along the ET&WNC" series tells the whole story with lots of good pictures. Here is a _link_ that shows the engines at work in Alaska and also pictures of the engine-house fire.

The White Pass & Yukon sold several of their locomotives back to the southern mountains. Engine 190 at Tweetsie Railroad and Engines 192, 70, and 71 at Dollywood all came from the White Pass.

http://www.johnsonsdepot.com/crumley/tour9.htm

Wow....some great pics!

I have some questions....

1) I'm from Deep Gap, and I have been fanning the Clinchfield in this area for about 2 years, and i have become quite familiar with Spruce Pine, Altapass, ETC....or so i thought. While nosing around on some web pages ( which led me here ) i discovered a some info about Altapass i didn't know, mainly about the hotel and the station. Can someone tell me where these were located? I know there was a wye near Holman hill road....

2) Whats up with the lumber yard located down town ( the one with the big crane ), and what looks like a very low trestle that used to cross the street?

3) Any more "surprising" info about the Railroads past in the area, and whats a good source of history for this community?

4) The old caboose at Altapass looks to need some repairs. Are there any plans to keep it maintained ?

Few more...
I fan the area around "the loops" quite a bit, and have spent some time at Camp II ( Why is it called that? ). I also do some "night" fanning, and upon stopping at Camp II one night with my girl-friend, she promptly ask me to leave saying that she had a "very uncomfortable" feeling there she had not experienced during the day. She also ask me not to stop there at night again.

I know there was a great deal of tragedy and loss-of-life during the construction of this area of the ClinchField, but my girlfriend's....um... "intuition" has proven to be fairly accurate in the past, and i was wondering if there was anything specific that had occurred at or around the Camp II area?

Many thanks, and congrats on a great little town you have over there.