A train that's not a train

Track maintenance on Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2018.  This is the only one I captured, but earlier in the day another big orange machine on the tracks was cutting back trees/branches/bushes...and leaving them lying along the sides of the tracks.

No wonder I haven't heard any trains this afternoon.  There are many miles of mountainous tracks between Black Mountain and Old Fort...if they went that direction.  I've heard there are ll tunnels through those mountains, and one place where a switchback occurs such that you can see the beginning of the train across from the end of the train.

When the electric generating plant in Asheville switches to natural gas, I wonder if we'll have as many coal trains come through here.  Of course many other electric plants will still burn coal.  But the industry itself has seen the writing on the wall.