What is a tipple bridge, you ask? It's where gravity is used to transfer coal (most commonly) from one train to a different one. Here is what it looks like from down below. Trains with coal would come across the high bridge, and dump the coal through this light gray structure into the waiting cars below. You can just barely see black cars below.
There was one other chance to see this bridge from an overlook today. However, when Doug and I got there, there was so much fog we could barely see it. Sue took this picture earlier in the morning. It sort of puts that huge bridge in persepective in the landscape.
They had an excellent model of the operation. I managed to get one picture without too many reflections. First of all, let me say that the trail goes along the orange and blue lines near the top. Trains would come over the high tipple bridge (orange line), and dump the coal down through the building. Then the train would continue on the orange line. When the last car was clear, they could back up (blue line). When the engine was clear of the yellow line, the train could descend to the lower green level. I should have broken the green line to show it's lower than the bridge. Hope you can figure it out.
I'd love to know more about the general lines in the area. This was ALL under the control of Justus Stearns whom I mentioned a few days ago. There is a biography of him, but I haven't read it because I wasn't so much interested in his southern operations before. But now, I really want to know more.
Other memorable moments of the day.
We started with a wade of Rock Creek. But we need to rename it as Lost Stick Creek. We got across, and Doug looked back and realized he'd left his hiking stick. And he'd already changed out of his water shoes. So he changed back and went to retrieve his stick.
We knew there were going to be showers during the day. We didn't mind hiking in the light rain much, but just sitting to eat lunch didn't appeal very much. We found a cave! It was completely dry under the overhang. You can see how dry the dirt is.
We saw two more box turtles- both of them small. We were able to hike right along. For the most part, the trail was in good condition. I was a tiny bit concerned about the distance because there were a lot of hills. But the big difference was that there was not a fallen tree to deal with every 10 minutes. I wasn't overly tired at the end of the day.
And we had a cheering section! Sue came and found us near the end at Waters Cemetery. We just had about an hour to go after that.
We hiked a little farther than the trailhead to reduce the mileage for the next day. Actually, that won't be tomorrow. We have to change campgrounds, and the logistics are tricky, so we are "jumping ahead" to hike shorter mileage tomorrow. Then we'll come back and connect from today.
Miles hiked in 2026: 580.3
Sheltowee Trace miles: 248.3
Sheltowee Trace, Kentucky. K&T Railroad Bridge to junction with trail south of Ledbetter TH, 13.5 miles.
 | See Sheltowee Trace- Rain and Fun |
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