The Streets of Fayetteville - Part 2
Fayetteville, the seat of Cumberland County North Carolina is most widely known as the home of the US Army’s Fort Bragg. The city itself is larger than expected with a population of around 210,000 but has a reputation as kind of a tough town. It is so rough that soldiers stationed on post are advised to avoid downtown “Fayette-nam” as it’s derisively referenced. But to the visiting railfan willing to take a look around the city has a surprisingly lot to offer. And while I wouldn’t call it a particularly inviting place, I in no way felt ill at ease or unsafe photographing in town.
By far the dominant railroad in town is CSXT with their south end subdivision, the former Atlantic Coast Line main, seeing the passage of dozens of daily freight trains and four daily Amtrak trains on an 11 mile stretch of double track through the city.
The city is also served by the Norfolk Southern that arrives tri-weekly on a 43 mile branch from Fuquay-Varina that was an ORIGINAL pre-1974 Norfolk Southern.
And those roads both interchange with the famous and always independent shortline Aberdeen and Rockfish that calls Fayetteville the eastern endpoint of its 47 mile route.
CSXT also operates two branchlines out of the city, both of which are remaining stubs of the one time Cape Fear & Yadkin Valley Railroad dating from the 1880s. That Atlantic Coast Line came to own the Sanford to Wilmington Route by 1900 and it would remain as a thru route into the 1970s.
Here is an A&R local switching some gons on the back alleys of town down Worth Street. #400 is a GP38 built new in 1968 for the road where it has worked for it’s entire life. This is the same unit seen on the string of four in the earlier image of them working the interchange yard with NS.
Fayetteville, North Carolina
Friday May 29, 2015.
The Streets of Fayetteville - Part 2
Fayetteville, the seat of Cumberland County North Carolina is most widely known as the home of the US Army’s Fort Bragg. The city itself is larger than expected with a population of around 210,000 but has a reputation as kind of a tough town. It is so rough that soldiers stationed on post are advised to avoid downtown “Fayette-nam” as it’s derisively referenced. But to the visiting railfan willing to take a look around the city has a surprisingly lot to offer. And while I wouldn’t call it a particularly inviting place, I in no way felt ill at ease or unsafe photographing in town.
By far the dominant railroad in town is CSXT with their south end subdivision, the former Atlantic Coast Line main, seeing the passage of dozens of daily freight trains and four daily Amtrak trains on an 11 mile stretch of double track through the city.
The city is also served by the Norfolk Southern that arrives tri-weekly on a 43 mile branch from Fuquay-Varina that was an ORIGINAL pre-1974 Norfolk Southern.
And those roads both interchange with the famous and always independent shortline Aberdeen and Rockfish that calls Fayetteville the eastern endpoint of its 47 mile route.
CSXT also operates two branchlines out of the city, both of which are remaining stubs of the one time Cape Fear & Yadkin Valley Railroad dating from the 1880s. That Atlantic Coast Line came to own the Sanford to Wilmington Route by 1900 and it would remain as a thru route into the 1970s.
Here is an A&R local switching some gons on the back alleys of town down Worth Street. #400 is a GP38 built new in 1968 for the road where it has worked for it’s entire life. This is the same unit seen on the string of four in the earlier image of them working the interchange yard with NS.
Fayetteville, North Carolina
Friday May 29, 2015.