The 2 times I have gone down to rail level at Natural Tunnel, I waited for hours and got not one movement. Probably bad luck, but it's quite a climb back up. The times I went were off-season and the lift was not running. There's lots of scenic places on the line from Speers Ferry to Norton, but traffic is lacking at times.
The only guarantee as to what railroad runs what line, is every movement off of the L&N near Appalachia has to run over the ex-Southern to get to the Clinchfield at Frisco. Sometimes NS trains off the Clinch Valley heading south to Bulls Gap will run over the Clinchfield between St. Paul and Frisco, sometimes trains off the Clinchfield will run over the Southern N&W/Southern between St. Paul and Frisco, but that's not usually the case. It's considerably longer on the N&W and Southern routing via Norton and Big Stone Gap than it is over the Clinchfield.
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