Where it meant moving mountains of earth, Southern Railway moved them. Where it meant cutting mountains in half, Southern cut them in half. Earth was taken in giant bites from where it wasn't wanted. . . and was put down again where nearsighted nature hadn't known Southern would need it.

Deep ravines were bridged with earth, and rivers and valleys with steel; the natural course of a river was changed.

On July 10, 1963, a train -this train -broke out of a clinging early-morning fog on the north end of a bridge more than 300 feet above the New River just south of Helenwood, Tenn.

It was the first daylight train across the new span, which had opened for operation that day at 12:05 a.m., to mark completion of one of the most ambitious railroad construction projects undertaken in this country in half a century or more.

Southern Railway had "broken the traffic bottlenecks" along its CNO&TP division, 336 miles of important railroad leased from the City of Cincinnati by The Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific Railway Company, a Southern System member line.

It took 18 months and it cost $32 million to break open the last of the traffic bottlenecks along this railroad whose low, narrow clearances had long ago caused it to be dubbed "the rathole division."

Nine of the old tight-squeeze tunnels were bypassed by line changes. Three of the old tunnels were bypassed through three new tunnels, and one former "rathole" was enlarged; all of these four new tunnels are a big, big 20 feet wide and 30 feet high. To bypass the old tunnels that were eliminated, to eliminate and reduce curves and flatten grades, almost 25 miles of new railroad was built.

Now the CNO& TP is opened up and straightened out . . . there is now no limit to Southern service on this high, wide and handsome railroad. Shippers, as well as Southern, are happy about it.

Southern can now make more profitable use of this railroad between Chattanooga, Tenn., and Cincinnati, Ohio. Shippers can now have better service; using the bigger equipment that means savings in transportation costs. Trains can now move at the faster, more dependable schedules so important in this age when inventory control and distribution patterns as affected by transportation can tip the scales toward profit or loss, and determine what carriers will get a shipper's business.

The pictures on the following pages prove that along with the steam locomotive and the old "standard" wooden boxcar, "the rathole division" is now railroad history.

A thing of the past, like so many other things that technological advances and managerial initiative on Southern have made obsolete because they were not good enough.

They show that an aggressive railroad will literally move mountains when it comes to making itself able to do a better job for more people. Jobs follow the freight