Park
Station
This area is known
as Park Station, and was a popular stop along the Duck River Valley
Narrow gauge / Columbia spur of the Nashville, Chattanooga, and St.
Louis railroad.
The Park Station
depot was located at mile post 76.75, and was at an elevation of
663 feet above sea level. Along with the depot, this stop offered 1
siding and a water tank. This area also included a store, which was
located behind and across what its now Rick Hight road from the
depot. Park Station saw quite a bit of traffic back in the day,
even though it was extremely rural (population of 11 people in
1910).
The red arrow in the image
illustrates the approximate location of the
depot.
The container is a
small camouflaged lock-n-lock, containing a log book and room for
small trade items. The hide is basically a park-n-grab and with the
very small amount of traffic on B Kerr road, there should be no
problems with parking on the side of the road to retrieve the
cache. You should not have to search in the field - the cache is
accessible from the road.
Some history about this rail
line
The Duck River Valley
Narrow Gauge Railway received its charter in 1870 to begin
construction on a narrow gauge rail line extending from
Fayetteville to "a point near Johnsonville". Construction began in
Columbia, and headed southerly towards Fayetteville. By the spring
of 1877, the line from Columbia to Lewisburg offered reliable
transportation between the neighboring cities.
Construction continued on a
southeasterly path at a fast pace, and reached the sleepy little
town of Petersburg in 1879. The goal of the Duck River Valley
Narrow Gauge Railroad was to complete this line all the way into
Fayetteville, where it would connect with the standard gauge line
operated by the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Ry
(NC&StL). While the Duck River Valley RR had been successful at
maintaining and operating this line, funds for the final expansion
into Fayetteville started to dry up.
In the fall of '79, the decision
was made to lease the line to NC&StL, injecting much-needed
resources into the project. The construction slowed down quite a
bit during this period, and work actually stopped for a year in the
fall of 1880. The line to Fayetteville was finally completed in
1882, and for five years the line was owned by the Duck River
Valley Narrow Gauge RR, but was serviced and maintained by
NC&StL.
In 1888, the NC&StL Ry
purchased the entire line from the Duck River Valley NGRR. In an
effort to better service the area, an improvement project began to
convert the entire 48 mile spur from the narrow gauge track to
standard width. Not only would this increase the capacity of the
line, but it would eliminate the need to transfer the narrow gauge
loads onto the standard gauge equipment in
Fayetteville.
By early 1889, 100% of the line
was standardized and was renamed the Columbia spur of the
Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railroad. In its heyday,
this line offered two daily round-trip trains from Fayetteville to
Columbia on all days except Sunday. Trains would make the 47.4 mile
journey in as little as 2 hours.
The line continued operation for
more than seventy years, carrying goods and passengers to and from
the heart of Tennessee. This spur was very successful, but
competing technologies would soon cut into the demand for rail
service along this route. In 1945, the line connecting Columbia to
Lewisburg ceased operation and the line was abandoned. By the end
of 1961, the rest of the line from Lewisburg to Fayetteville would
meet the same fate.
What once was the backbone of
this area now has become a faint memory. A few of the portions of
the original track are still in use as spurs in Columbia and
Lewisburg, but the majority of the line was either converted into
rural roadways, or left to be overtaken by the
elements.
