Railroading in
By-gone Days
II lias been an interesting proc¬
ess of development; from the
crude wood-burning' trains of
about a century ago to the ef¬
ficient rail transportation of
modern limes.
By R. C. LAWK
ИКСЕ
MEBBE you :ire old enough to
remember the early automobile,
the ancient “steamers” whose
motive power was kerosene oil, and
where the boiler was placed right un¬
der the seat of the driver. No wonder
the legislature had to pass a statute
requiring the drivers of such contrap¬
tions to stop when a team appeared to
be frightened — as all of them did !
The ancient railroads were just as
fearfully and wonderfully construct¬
ed. When the original Raleigh and
Gaston was built in the early ’thirties,
it did not boast either cross-ties or
steel rails. The crude “strap iron”
rail was laid on longitudinal stringers
of pine wood ; with the result that
every now and then the rail would
buckle into a “snake head” which
would burst through the bottom of the
flimsy coaches. And the speed! The
Clerk of Wake Superior Court wished
to attend Wake Forest commencement,
but on reaching the depot found his
train had left. Procuring a convey¬
ance from a livery stable, he tra¬
versed the eighteen miles over the
rough roads of the period and was
sittting comfortably in the College
Chapel, when the whistle announced
the arrival of the train from Raleigh.
The engines had names instead of
numbers, and the name of that par¬
ticular locomotive was “Tornado”!
The first railroad of which Fayette¬
ville was able to boast, was not built
to haul either freight or passengers,
but to reach the “coal fields” of Chat¬
ham, which were then supposed to be
of enormous value; fuel from which
was used throughout the Civil War.
This coal was so low grade that it
gave off a dense smoke which prevent¬
ed its use by the blockade runners,
but it otherwise furnished most of the
fuel used in this section during the
period of the Civil War.
The names of some of the early lines
were most ambitious, and it seemed
that the shorter the line, the longer
its name. That of the short line be¬
tween Charlotte and Statesville was
the “Atlantic, Tennessee and Ohio”;
while the "Raleigh and Charleston"
did not come within a hundred miles
of either of these cities. These are
but two instances of many misnomers.
One of the best examples of the
skill of the early engineers can be
found on what is now the Seaboard
between Xavussa and Laurel Hill,
where more than ninety miles is a
perfect tangent, the longest stretch
of perfectly straight track in the
South. On this line is located "Old
Hundred,” so named I "'cause it was
just that distance from Wilmington!
When what is now the Seaboard be¬
tween Raleigh and Hamlet was con¬
structed immediately following the
close of the Civil War, its chief engi¬
neer, William Moncure, had at liis
disposal a construction force consist¬
ing of some dump carts, a few mules,
and numerous steers! But he com¬
pleted the line, even if lie did not have
the benefit of the present-day steam
shovel.
It is not generally known that the
main line of the Southern between
Greensboro and Danville was con¬
structed by the Confederate Govern¬
ment during the war as a military
necessity, for it was feared that the
line between Wilmington and Peters¬
burg might be cut by raiding Federal
cavalry. In this event there other¬
wise would have been no other route
by which supplies could be conveyed
to Lee’s army. The construction of
this line — then called the Piedmont
Air Line — was hurriedly undertaken;
and as the South did not possess new
rails for additional construction, those
on the line between Charlotte and
Statesville were taken up and re-
laid to form the track of the Pied¬
mont. Supplies for Lee’s army were
carried over this artery until the
fateful day of Appomattox; and it
was over this line that the Confed¬
erate President and Cabinet fled South
from the doomed capital of the Con¬
federacy.
One of the scenic wonders of the
nation is the line of the Southern be¬
tween Old Fort and Asheville, a
perfect marvel of engineering, prod¬
uct of the engineering genius of a
native born Carolinian, Major James
W. Wilson, who later served as chair¬
man of the original “Railroad Com¬
mission.” On this line, at a point near
Round Knob, the railroad can be seen
at sixteen different places, both above
and below the observer! The place
known as “Mud Cut” was long a
problem to the engineers, for after
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