God's Side of the Tracks

In the tiny village of Huntdale, NC, up in Appalachia is a Free Will Baptist Church, Established in 1900.    

 

The Church is on the north side of the Clinchfield RR (now CSX) tracks.  There is no road on the north side of the tracks.  The only way to get to the church is to cross the tracks at an unguarded crossing.  

Because of a sharp curve the trains go slow through there.  But the noise is still significant.  Today there is about one train every 2 hours.  At one time a steam-engine-pulled train came by much more often.  I hope the preacher times his sermon so the fire and brimstone part comes as a train goes by.

I guess on a snowy Sunday morning coming out of the church if you slip and fall on the tracks and get run over you go straight to heaven.

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Do you remember the song with the first line "The railroad comes through the middle of the house".  Huntdale comes as close as I have ever seen to making that true.  Look at how close the back yards are to the tracks in this picture I took seconds before the one of the train above.

The version of the song by Vaughn Monroe charted at #11 in September 1956.  Maybe we can rewrite the song to "The railroad came up the aisle."  In 1975 the Lawrence Welk Show turned the song into a skit as seen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQqw74zQN4M