Is there an official—or conjectural—estimate of the number of risers? I'd guess the contractor knows.

Not recommended for acrophobics, despite the apparently solid construction. Bing Maps has some great aerial images of this area for comparison at: http://tinyurl.com/6tsu9mg

Be sure to zoom in on the bridge and click the "Bird's eye" option--then click-and-drag, play with the rotate button,etc. to bring up several different views, including one with a train on the bridge.

That rich, bottom land soil is tempting for agriculture, but I think my house would stand high on pilings were I to build on that flood plain!

The people at the top of the photo don't look like youngsters, but I'm thinking of the guys who BUILT this thing. How the heck did they get those stairs on that cliff? I wonder how many injuries were sustained by those who erected this thing.

Before I thought about Ollie and Stan and the piano and the cop and the mailman Charlie Hall I was awestruck with the skills in carpentry that went into the building of this stairway.

If the stairs were constructed to today's building codes, typically a landing would be required for every twelve feet of height. Good place to break a fall if you started tumbling down, and would definitely provide a nice spot to catch your breath on the climb back up!

Alas, the boards are long gone:
http://binged.it/yL2sg9

We have a piano to deliver.

My Official Railway Guide 1893 reprint lists this location as being on the Queen & Crescent System, which included the Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific, so it would have been incorporated into the Southern Railway System by the time of the photo, and today would indeed be on Norfolk Southern's Rathole Division.

I would imagine that this photo was taken from the railway bridge. The stairs might be for access between the depot and the river.

Today's Americans With Disabilities Act compliance officer would definitely not approve.

Scary enough in good weather, but in rain. Forget it. Trouble is, it could start to rain along the way, as that is along way. And ice would be even worse. Yikes.

I remember as a kid being handed a scraper, cans of paint and a brush. I was then pointed at the back porch and heard "get started". There went spring break. This thing would have definitely killed my entire summer vacation.

Those have got to be the longest flights of stairs I have eve rseen. Rollin, rollin, rollin, is right. Those stairways are totally cool, and ridiculously unsafe. It must be a code violation to construct a stairway today with such long uninterrupted runs. I wonder if anyone did trip at the top of a landing?

Looking at satellite photos, it's hard to tell.

There's a stairway like that at Duke Creek Falls in Georgia. You don't want to be doing it more than once in a day - or a weekend for that matter.

Two wondering questions come to mind - did anyone every catch their foot at the top and roll all the way down to the bottom (rollin', rollin' rollin - Rawhide) - and conversely, did anyone ever have a heart attack climbing UP those stairs? If I lived there, I'd take the first train out!

Very few tried to slide down those bannisters! And it wouldn't be just fear of splinters that would hold them back.

Is this in the now-Norfolk Southern Rathole Division between Kentucky and Tennessee?

High Bridge is quite a site. My wife and I have been over it a couple of times on J611 and 1218 excursons. I understand in the old days the railway ran trips out to the gorge and participants enjoyed picnics and hikes down to the river...and now, thanks to Shorpy, I can see how they got down to the river.

Wow, quite a climb!

I wonder where the railway bridge is from here?

Truly a geologist's dream.