Great Smoky Mountains Railroad Motorcar Excursion 2019 

Glad you enjoyed it! It is beautiful up there.

Thanks, I follow tracks on Earth too!

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Yeah

Actually, the GSMR is a vary popular tourist railroad and sees daily traffic between Bryson City and Dillsboro. There is also some freight traffic in Sylva. It is a beautiful line. Thank you for your service!

Thanks. I've got lots more motorcar videos like this, so be sure to check them out too.

Glad you enjoyed it!

It's pretty spectacular in the fall.

Thank you so much!

I miss seeing you on these runs Wayne.

Thank you so much!

The grade up the Gap was too hard on the 1702 was it not?

Unfortunately, I don't own a motorcar. I am a certified and insured operator and share the running with the owner. I'm a modeler as well. I have two small HO layouts and an N scale layout under construction. I don't have any Lionel, but I do have a few pieces of 2-rail O scale equipment. I definitely suffer from MSD (Multiple Scale Disorder) : )

The reflections are awful.

We stay nice and dry. I actually like riding in the rain, you just have to be a lot more careful.

That would be cool!

It was built with convict labor.

That sounds so nice. I'm so sick of Atlanta, lived here all my life and would love to move to the mountains.

Sometimes we have a schedule to keep. On the GSMR, we have to get to a certain point to get in the clear for the tourist train. There might have been a delay and so we had to make up time. Also, for some reason, the video makes it look like we're going a lot faster than we actually are.

Yes, we usually make this run once a year. This is a private excursion and is not open to the public which is why it's not listed on their website. We actually rent the railroad for the weekend. The person who puts on this run is a manager at the GSMR as well as a member of NARCOA (North American Railcar Operators Association), which is what makes this run possible.

Thanks so much for answering back. This is something we have very much wanted to do. Maybe someday! Enjoyed your videos!

Could be because they quit making them about 50 years ago. 😃

@@motorcarlamar ...Did you find out about these motorcars on ytube also?

Oh no, I've been in this since long before RU-vid. I learned about motorcars back in the 1970's.@@areguapiri

Although it looks like we're going fast, the actual speed is around 20 or 25mph. Steam used to be the only thing that ran on this line. The Murphy Branch was built between 1881 and 1894. As many times as I have ridden this line, I don't recall seeing any remnants of water tanks or signal bases either.

There is a part that is disused, but the rest is a very busy, well maintained tourist railroad. Western North Carolina is a beautiful part of the country, although, the lush green scenery often comes with 90-100 degree temperatures in the Summer.

@@motorcarlamar is beautiful very much like where I live in west Dorset on the jerassic coast here in England. we can have hot summers here with similar temperatures. Most the disused railways here in uk, they lift the tracks and the fact that urs don't and u can do this is beautiful. I like the heavy industry these old railways used to have and then going back in to nature. I find it really beautiful.

​@@christinecrockford1654 Tracks are ripped up as fast as they can do it. In 1920 there was approximately 253,000 miles of tracks and now there is about 135,000. Quite depressing to us train lovers.

@@motorcarlamar it's so nice u got back to me. I'm not really a train lover but I sure would love to ride on one them train carts looks so relaxing and also love to be friends xx

@@christinecrockford1654 I really do enjoy chatting with people from around the world. Riding these little motorcars can be very relaxing, especially after a big lunch. 😃 They do rock and bounce a lot. Anytime you're in Atlanta, Georgia, I'd be happy to meet up with you!

Sorry, but you can't rent these. They are privately owned. It takes studying and passing a rules test and being trained how to operate the vehicles. These are real track maintanence vehicles being operated on real railroads which can be very dangerous. It's very similar to going to work with a real railroad. We operate under all the rules and regulations of the FRA as well as the host railroad. To answer the second part of your question, this particular run does not have a set time of year. Last year there wasn't a run and this year doesn't look good either thanks to Covid.

Very much so. There is a lot of planning that goes into putting on these runs. We pay the host railroads for the pleasure of using their tracks.

I wish we could go to Murphy. The tourist railroad only runs between Bryson City and the Nantahala Outdoor Center.

@@motorcarlamar that's sad been good to run all the way to Murphy and to copperhill TN

They are very much in use. The GSMR uses what used the Southern Railway Murphy Branch. There are excursion trips every day. Check their website at www.gsmr.com/

Да, это так (Yes it is)

A lot of the motorcars have a turntable which is basically a modified RV tongue jack mounted in the engine compartment. There is a large plate that lowers down and lifts the car off the rails allowing you to spin it around. All the cars have a set of long handles that slide out so you can pick up the car like a wheel barrow and turn it around by hand (not fun). The cars weigh about 1,000 pounds and the weight goes up depending on the size of the car.

That is sad. Actually, we have to go through a lot of what you mentioned. It takes time to put together one of these excursions. We have special insurance, and have to get approval from the railroads. The motorcars have to pass safety inspections and the operators have to go through a certification process. My videos only show the results of weeks if not months of preparation.

Its actually pretty much the same here. As I understand it, these folks work for the railroad, so getting permission is at least possible (hey - some jobs have great perks! lol). For anyone else, this would land you in jail and fined. In fact, there are NO mechanisms for petition to individually or personally ride any rails on personal devices in the US - abandoned or not. The only realistic way (other than the people in this group in the video) is to break the law and do it anyway.

@@Max_R_MaMint that's exactly right.

🤣 Light Weight vs 🤔

The extra rails are guard rails. In case of a derailment they help keep the wheels from wandering off.

Sorry, but this is a private excursion. These cars are all owned by club members and travel all over the place to ride on the railroads that we rent.

Get wet! Unless they have rain gear.😄

@@motorcarlamar Kinda wondered! Was not sure if they had a cover for them or not.

@@LawMan62 It happedned to me one time. I let the driver wear my rainsuit while I went and rode in a covered car.

Yes it is.

www.narcoa.org

Oh yes. Did this run a few weeks ago. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-csn83ywq84I.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-TcTIfErPh2o.html

Absolutely! These runs are completely coordinated with the host railroad. The easiest way to describe this is that we rent the railroad for the time needed and almost always have a railroad representative with us. www.narcoa.org

As you can see in the video, she's in a million pieces. The plan is to rebuild her to operating condition, but I haven't heard anything lately.

All of these rail cars are privately owned and do not offer rides to the public. That being said, our website is: www.narcoa.org. If you go to the excursion calendar, you can look for a run in your area and contact the excursion coordinator (EC) and find out if there might be any way to get a ride with someone. You have to be there for the safety briefing VERY early in the morning and plan to be gone till potentially late in the day, although, if someone can pick you up somewhere along the line, we will stop and let you off. Some of these trips may cover over a hundred miles in a day. We will be more than happy to have you along.

Not anymore. Just the motorcars when we get to run on their tracks.

Thank you!. ขอขอบคุณ

It gets used all the time. The GSMR is a very popular tourist railroad in North Carolina.

I have a hard time believing that they use the line to andrews all the time.

We don't have any choice where the motorcar is placed in line, although a lot of my videos are shot from the front.

@@motorcarlamar Thanks for the response. Please excuse the coarse tone of my previous comment. I sympathize with anyone who is limited by circumstances like this.

@@slug77ster The last run I was on, we were right behind the porta-pottie.😁😁😁

@@slug77ster check out my last run. We were right behind the porta-pottie ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-I0NxF1jt5Ns.html 😁😁😁

Yeah, I don't like it either. I don't know why the video does that. I use a fixed-focus action camera (similar to a GoPro). The raw footage played on my computer looks beautiful, but when it gets processed and uploaded to RU-vid, it sometimes gets that pulsing focus. I've seen other channel's videos that do that too. It could be an algorithm issue in my old editing software or in RU-vid. I don't make any money off these videos, so I can't afford better equipment, if that's the problem. Thanks for your comment. Camera: Yi Lite Editing Software: Windows Movie Maker (no longer supported by Microsoft}

Ith8nk it is RU-vid. If you are a paid person you get better video it seems like.

The railroad is heavily used by the tourist trains.

Technically, the section from Andrews to Dillsboro is not abandoned although it is not in use. It is kept up.

@@motorcarlamar thank you I have rode on the Great Smokey Railroad twice before and was wondering what happens to the other ends

The track at the beginning of the video is not in use so it's not maintained. Also, this is a tourist railroad so there is not a lot of money for keeping the right of way clean.

The GSMR is a very active tourist railroad. There is a section of not it not being used but its all connected.

It's not too bad.

We're not allowed to. That implies we have the right of way, which we don't.

That makes sense thank you Nice ride!

Je sais. RU-vid réduit la qualité de l'image sur les petites chaînes.

@@motorcarlamar alors , pardon , je suis désolé pour vous !

Personally, I HATE the flags. We are IN the mountains, the roadbed is cut right into the side of the mountains. RULES, RULES, RULES. That's what keeps us alive out there.

That is not a drone. It is an action camera mounted to the front of the motorcar.

Rails are always flat unlike the roads are. You can always look at the route on Google Earth and see that it IS the Smokey Mountains Range 😛

These are the SMOKY mountains; you live in the SMOKEY mountains...this is the source of your confusion.

That's the RU-vid algorithm. I have no control over them degrading video quality on small YT channels.

If you want to see boring, watch the vids of the guys in Utah riding defunct rails. Nothing but dirt and rocks as far as you can see.

I wouldn't call this boring but a VR version of this would be incredible.

Yeah, the real scenery is off to the sides.