 Carrboro Yard | |
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Reporting mark | SUR |
| Locale | North Carolina |
| Dates of operation | 1873–Present |
| Technical | |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge |
| Length | 10.2 miles (16.4 kilometres) |
| Other | |
| Website | www.nscorp.com |
The State University Railroad is a 10.2 mile railroad spur of the North Carolina Railroad that began offering service from Glenn, North Carolina, near Hillsborough to a point west of Chapel Hill, North Carolina on January 1, 1882. [1]
As railroads developed in North Carolina during the eighteenth century, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's relatively isolated location meant that it did not lie along any rail lines initially. A major east-west rail corridor between Greensboro in the west and Goldsboro in the east passed eight miles to the north. [2]
Robert F. Hoke, a former Confederate general and the owner of an iron mine just north of Chapel Hill, obtained a charter in February 1873 for the Chapel Hill Iron Mountain Railroad Company, [2] but the railroad was not organized until after the name was changed to the State University Railroad in March 1879, [3] with the support of UNC president Kemp Battle. [1] In order that the students at the University of North Carolina not be tempted from their studies, a state statute decreed that the end of the spur be located at least a mile from the school's campus. [4]
The rail line began service in 1881, [2] and the first train, known as "The Whooper," [1] [5] was a locomotive and two passenger cars that made the run from University Station to Chapel Hill Station twice daily. The trip from university station to Chapel Hill Station took an hour traveling southbound and seventy minutes northbound. The current town of Carrboro, then known as West End, started to grow as a result of the railroad. [6] Elizabeth 'Libba' Cotten wrote the famous song "Freight Train" as a young teenager, inspired mainly by the train that for years passed behind her house on Lloyd Street in Carrboro. [6] In the 1920s, the line was extended into the UNC campus for a time, where it was used to transport construction materials for campus buildings, including Wilson Library. [1]
The company still exists as a subsidiary of the Norfolk Southern Railway. [7] As passenger service ended by 1940, UNC's new power plant was built to take advantage of the rail line. The primary traffic on the rail line currently comes from freight deliveries of coal to this power plant. [2]
Chapel Hill is a town in Orange and Durham County, North Carolina, United States. Its population was 61,960 in the 2020 census, making Chapel Hill the 17th-most populous municipality in the state. Chapel Hill and Durham make up the Durham-Chapel Hill, NC Metropolitan Statistical Area, which had an estimated population of 608,879 in 2023. When it's combined with Raleigh, the state capital, they make up the corners of the Research Triangle, which had an estimated population of 2,368,947 in 2023.
Orange County is a county located in the Piedmont region of the U.S. state of North Carolina. As of the 2020 census, the population was 148,696. Its county seat is Hillsborough. Orange County is included in the Durham-Chapel Hill, NC Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is also included in the Raleigh-Durham-Cary, NC Combined Statistical Area, which had an estimated population of 2,368,947 in 2023. It is home to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the flagship institution of the University of North Carolina System and the oldest state-supported university in the United States.
Carrboro is a town in Orange County in the U.S. state of North Carolina. The population was 21,295 at the 2020 census. The town, which is part of the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill combined statistical area, was named after North Carolina industrialist Julian S. Carr.
The Southern Railway was a class 1 railroad based in the Southern United States between 1894 and 1982, when it merged with the Norfolk and Western Railway (N&W) to form the Norfolk Southern Railway. The railroad was the product of nearly 150 predecessor lines that were combined, reorganized and recombined beginning in the 1830s, formally becoming the Southern Railway in 1894.
The Richmond and Danville Railroad (R&D) Company was a railroad that operated independently from 1847 until 1894, first in the U.S. state of Virginia, and later on 3,300 miles (5,300 km) of track in nine states.
The Great Smoky Mountains Railroad is a heritage and freight railroad based in Bryson City, North Carolina, United States. Originally formed in 1988, it is currently owned and operated by American Heritage Railways since late 1999. The GSMR operates excursion trains on the former Southern Railway's Murphy Branch between Dillsboro and Nantahala, North Carolina. The GSMR is one of the most popular tourist railroads in the United States, carrying 200,000 passengers each year.
The New Hope Valley Railway is a heritage railroad in Bonsal, North Carolina operated by the North Carolina Railway Museum, Inc., an all-volunteer, nonprofit, and tax exempt educational and historical organization.
The Murphy Branch is a branch line operated by the Western North Carolina Railroad, later the Richmond and Danville, Southern Railway, the Norfolk Southern Railway (NS) and today the Blue Ridge Southern Railroad. The branch runs between Asheville, North Carolina in the east and Murphy in the west.
Chapel Hill Transit operates public bus and van transportation services within the contiguous municipalities of Chapel Hill and Carrboro and the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the southeast corner of Orange County in the Research Triangle metropolitan region of North Carolina. Chapel Hill Transit operates its fixed route system fare free due to a contractual agreement with the two towns and the university to share annual operating and capital costs. In 2023, the system had a ridership of 3,855,400, or about 11,400 per weekday as of the second quarter of 2024.
Carr Mill Mall is a small, local shopping mall located in Carrboro, North Carolina. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Alberta Mill Complex. It is also a host for numerous local live performances and other cultural events.
Charlotte station is an Amtrak station located at 1914 North Tryon Street, about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) to the northeast of Uptown Charlotte. Owned by Norfolk Southern, it is located near that railroad's yard outside Uptown.
J. Douglas Galyon Depot, also known as Greensboro station, is an intermodal transit facility in Greensboro, North Carolina. Located at 236 East Washington Street in downtown Greensboro, it serves Amtrak passenger rail and is the city's main hub for local and intercity buses.
The Piedmont & Northern Railway was a heavy electric interurban company operating over two disconnected divisions in North and South Carolina. Tracks spanned 128 miles (206 km) total between the two segments, with the northern division running 24 miles (39 km) from Charlotte, to Gastonia, North Carolina, including a three-mile (5 km) spur to Belmont. The southern division main line ran 89 miles (143 km) from Greenwood to Spartanburg, South Carolina, with a 12 mi (19 km) spur to Anderson. Initially the railroad was electrified at 1500 volts DC, however, much of the electrification was abandoned when dieselisation was completed in 1954.
Raleigh Union Station is an intermodal transit station in Raleigh, North Carolina, United States. Train service began the morning of July 10, 2018. Its main building serves as an Amtrak train station, while a future adjacent building will serve as the bus terminus for GoTriangle. The station is located at the Boylan Wye, a railroad junction used by CSX and Norfolk Southern, and adjacent to the Depot Historic District in downtown Raleigh.
The Goldsboro Union Station is a former passenger train depot and future intermodal transit station in Goldsboro, North Carolina, United States. Originally operating from 1909 to 1968, the Eclectic two-story brick depot was preserved as one of the most ambitious railroad structures in North Carolina, built as a symbol of the importance of railroading to Goldsboro. Currently closed-off for future renovations, the five-acre (2.0 ha) facility also includes the GWTA Bus Transfer Center.
Transportation in the city of Charlotte, North Carolina includes a large and growing mass transit and rail system, a major international airport, and several controlled-access highways.
The Carolina & Northwestern Railway (Ca&NW) was a railroad that served South Carolina and North Carolina from 1897 until January 1, 1974. The original line was operated by the Ca&NW as a separate railroad controlled by the Southern Railway until 1974 when the name was changed to the Norfolk Southern Railway. On June 1, 1982, Southern Railway and Norfolk and Western Railroad merged to form Norfolk Southern Railway. Choosing to use the name 'Norfolk Southern Railway' for the merger, in 1981, the original Ca&NW line along with original Norfolk Southern Railway was renamed Carolina and Northwestern once again. In the early 1950s several shortline subsidiaries of the Southern Railway were leased to the Ca&NW for operation, with these lines remaining a part of the Ca&NW into the 1980s.
The Atlantic and Danville Railway was a Class I railroad which operated in Virginia and North Carolina. The company was founded in 1882 and opened its mainline between Portsmouth, Virginia and Danville, Virginia in 1890. The Southern Railway leased the company from 1899–1949. The Norfolk and Western Railway purchased the company in 1962 and reorganized it as the Norfolk, Franklin and Danville Railway.
Durham–Orange Light Rail Transit (DOLRT) was a planned 17.7-mile (28.5 km) light rail line in central North Carolina. It was intended to start operating in 2028 between North Carolina Central University (NCCU) in eastern Durham and the UNC Medical Center in Orange County. This line was being developed by regional transit agency GoTriangle, and was in the engineering phase of the federal grant approval process when it was discontinued.
Norfolk Southern O-Line is a seldom used freight line on the Norfolk Southern Railway in the Piedmont region of North Carolina, running from Winston-Salem, NC to Charlotte, NC. Several sections are no longer in use, such as the Barium Springs to Mooresville section. While the O-Line saw much greater traffic during its heyday, the importance of the rail line to the Lake Norman region and the greater Charlotte metropolitan area have increased.
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