Back Streets Of Fayetteville
With the news just out that modern day Norfolk Southern is selling a surving piece of the original historic Norfolk Southern to RJ Corman I thought I'd share another shot from the one day I spent on part of the line. If you missed the news I'm talking about here's the link: www.railwayage.com/freight/short-lines-regionals/r-j-corm... I'm glad I shot this when I did, and I'd love to go back for some nice looking red Corman units in the street someday.
Anyway, here's the caption I wrote at the time:
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.
This remarkable street running is made even more special by story behind it, since prior to this trip none of us even knew it existed. One evening while we were hanging out at the Salisbury depot after the big 611 celebration that had brought us to Carolina we ran into a long time regular local fan named John who was an ex original Norfolk Southern (pre-74) engineer. He told us about the street running on a surviving portion of the original NS down in Fayetteville that the modern NS still serves with tri weekly with local out of Varina. Being that Friday was our day that we planned to head off to hunt the Aberdeen and Rockfish anyway we crossed our fingers and headed out. Low and behold luck was with us, as shortly after we arrived in Fayetteville we heard NS E25 (the symbol for the branchline local) crackle on the radio and we knew we were in luck.
We were rewarded with multitude of shots of this train on the half mile long section of street running as well as working the A&R interchange. In this view the northbound return train is starting their trip home as they kick up dust down the middle of Hillsboro Street at about MP VF42.4 on the East Carolina Business Unit's Varina to Fayetteville District. Leading is NS 6784 an EMD SD60M blt. Mar. 1993 as Conrail 5537 with standard cab SD60 number 6659 blt. for the NS in Nov. 1988 trailing.
Fayetteville, North Carolina
Friday May 29, 2015.
Back Streets Of Fayetteville
With the news just out that modern day Norfolk Southern is selling a surving piece of the original historic Norfolk Southern to RJ Corman I thought I'd share another shot from the one day I spent on part of the line. If you missed the news I'm talking about here's the link: www.railwayage.com/freight/short-lines-regionals/r-j-corm... I'm glad I shot this when I did, and I'd love to go back for some nice looking red Corman units in the street someday.
Anyway, here's the caption I wrote at the time:
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.
This remarkable street running is made even more special by story behind it, since prior to this trip none of us even knew it existed. One evening while we were hanging out at the Salisbury depot after the big 611 celebration that had brought us to Carolina we ran into a long time regular local fan named John who was an ex original Norfolk Southern (pre-74) engineer. He told us about the street running on a surviving portion of the original NS down in Fayetteville that the modern NS still serves with tri weekly with local out of Varina. Being that Friday was our day that we planned to head off to hunt the Aberdeen and Rockfish anyway we crossed our fingers and headed out. Low and behold luck was with us, as shortly after we arrived in Fayetteville we heard NS E25 (the symbol for the branchline local) crackle on the radio and we knew we were in luck.
We were rewarded with multitude of shots of this train on the half mile long section of street running as well as working the A&R interchange. In this view the northbound return train is starting their trip home as they kick up dust down the middle of Hillsboro Street at about MP VF42.4 on the East Carolina Business Unit's Varina to Fayetteville District. Leading is NS 6784 an EMD SD60M blt. Mar. 1993 as Conrail 5537 with standard cab SD60 number 6659 blt. for the NS in Nov. 1988 trailing.
Fayetteville, North Carolina
Friday May 29, 2015.