North Carolina Trip
Wilmington & Homeward
November 5-10, 2010

Photos by Dave Ingles

Friday, Nov. 4, was sunny in Wilmington all day, as it would remain all weekend, so we looked around the area. Mostly only the transportation-related photos are presented here. The old Atlantic Coast Line depot and headquarters downtown is all gone, with a local college occupying much of the area. The ACL freight house how has a nice railroad museum with displays outside, and is next door to the Best Western Coastline Inn motel! These are morning views. Downtown Wilmington is on the east side of the Cape Fear River, which runs north and south here.

These are morning views. Downtown Wilmington is on the east side of the Cape Fear River, which runs north and south here.

Thursday night we had dined at the Pilot House on the riverfront south of downtown Wilmington with the groom's parents and aunt and uncle, so next morning I had to take a photo of the old track still in the cobblestone street along the river, where decades ago freight houses undoubtedly were along the riverfront.  The river is to the right; this looks south.

The battleship USS North Carolina is across the river from downtown. We skipped the tour as we've done the one in Mobile, Ala.

South of the city a few miles, this Beau Rivage Country Club was where most of the bridal party stayed and where the reception was held.

It was low tide down at Kure Beach; we drove to the end of the road, and saw the ferry depart on its way to Southport on the very bottom of North Carolina's mainland

The ferry to Southport

We drove back north to Wrightsville Beach, not far east of our motel, and Friday night  the site of the rehearsal dinner, when I got perhaps my best photo of the happy couple, Camille Morgan and Terry Madden.

Saturday morning it was time to track down what little active railroading Wilmington has. There is a lift bridge across the Cape Fear into the city, and I suspect at least one CSX job comes into the city every weekday, at least, but there are few industries. The port has a lot of cars in it, but saw no engines; the route from the bridge around the east side of the city and south to the port, on the Cape Fear River, is circuitous and looks slow and not well-used. The active CSX Yard is Davis Yard, west of the city a few miles on the old SAL longest-tangent line toward Hamlet, NC. We cruised the periphery for few shots. One switch job was working in the yard.

After visiting Davis Yard on Saturday morning, we went by UNC Wilmington, where the bride is employed, and cruised by their condo just to see where it was, and found that its property fronts on the street that used to have Wilmington's trolley line to the beach. A shelter has been preserved -- which when I first spotted it was obvious to what it was -- and a piece of replica track installed.

Looking west toward their condo.

One obligatory wedding photo here, at the Cape Fear Christian Church

At the reception, our hosts, Jeff and Janet Madden of Wales, Wis., and her sister Karen and her husband, Tom Schreiber, of Plymouth, Mich.

Here are Carol and I at the reception Saturday night, photo by the groom's Dad, Jeff Madden; we used this on our 2010 Christmas card to our relatives and "normal" (non-railroad) friends. Sunday morning we began to head for home, via Myrtle Beach and Florence, S.C., tying up in suburban Columbia. There is no easy direct way to Wilmington across NC other than the one we had traveled eastward. It is interesting that we completly circled around Charlotte, from a great distance.

Sunday morning Nov. 7 we left town, heading for Myrtle Beach, just to say we'd been there, and to stop at the local Steak n Shake for a soft drink!

The ACL station still stands, in private use.

Next was Conway, SC, home to Coastal Carolina University and the ex-ACL depot, now HQ of Waccamaw Short Line. That's an ex-IC observation car at right.

Up the road we found this unit tied up on a string of freight cars. The ultimate undecorated GP38!

I grew up in Homewood, Ill., near Chicago, so when Homewood, S.C., was on the map, had to investigate; it's a neighborhood area just north of Conway.

Alas, I attended Central School, then Ridge School; we had no "Homewood" elementary.

Heading west, at Rains, NC, the highway went over a CSX line, and Vulcan Materials just to the north had a couple of units within camera range.

Obviously ex-UP, SW10, "switcher with a headache."

All was quiet at Florence, SC, on CSX. This is the mid-point crew-change and service stop for Amtrak's Auto-Train. I'd never seen the place in daylight, of course. These are from the station platform.

Amtrak uses the ex-baggage building as the depot; the big old ACL depot is part of a next-door hospital complex now.

Yard engines, a typical CSX GP40-slug set.

A northbound freight came in just as a CSX employee finally came out of the yard office to the left here (next to Amtrak) and politely asked me to leave.

Darlington, more known as home of a NASCAR race track west of town, still has its ex-SAL depot; no track nearby. From here, we headed south to get to Highway 301, not I-20 as we wanted to go thru Sumter, SC.

Cotton fields just south of Darlington

Arriving well after dark on Sunday night, we stayed in northeast suburban Columbia, SC, near an NS line on which we heard a couple of trains. Next morning we took a back road west, Hwy. 378, to the village of Prosperity. There wouldn't be much spare non-driving time this day, owing to two scheduled meetings with long-time friends we rarely see.

We crossed Lake Murray, a resort area on a body of water that's part of the Little Saluda River. Keep in mind this is Saluda, SOUTH Carolina.

The surviving depot, barely, in Prosperity is on the old Southern Rwy. branch, and needs a lot of help indeed.

Soon we heard a horn, but were unsure of on which line. The CSX line had looked in better shape as we came into town, so we scooted over there and got this short local headed for Columbia behind a slug set. We soon got on I-26 and pretty much made straight for Asheville, NC, to meet an old college friend, Ralph Weber, and his wife Mary, for lunch. We had to pass up Spartanburg, where I'd been two or three times in the 1960's, but no time.

This sign should've been in the eastward trek, but we didn't see such a nice sign near Mt. Airy.

Finally some of the wonderful fall colors we'd seen in West Virginia and western North Carolina going east was in bright sunlight! That is the range which the old Southern's Saluda grade climbs -- in NORTH Carolina.

We did take time to stop in "the" Saluda, N.C., where the depot has been moved across the street. I photographed a train on the grade in 1966, and rode the Carolina Special upgrade in the same year.

Looking north, then south at the crest; you can see the dropoff.

After our lunch meeting in the south suburbs of Asheville, we drove through town ... and had to make a shopping stop here!

It's not the groceries, it's the marked bag, silly!

Ed Note: I regret not saving a Condren egg carton from the '60s, a cousin's business, silly!

Traffic near the Biltmore prevented me from getting a good close shot of this NS train departing eastward for the Loops, Old Fort, and eventuallly the Spencer/Salisbury area. These are the DPUs; the train is going left to right, right near Biltmore Station, which still stands but I didn't shoot (used it in 1974 to board the Asheville Special).

We did trespass around the roundhouse, still in use, for a grab shot of parked power, taken from the car.

This firm's emblem could be mine!

At the north end of Asheville, I spotted this lineup from I-26 and exited for this shot. Jim Wrinn tells me it is the "Craggy Mountain RR," a private group of guys who own the equipment and bought, for next to nothing, and old industrial spur from the Southern, on which they occasionally run some of this stuff; I could see two small "critter" locomotives.

This time the Ingles store had a "Gas Express" in its parking lot, so it was time for another receipt!

On toward Kingsport, Tenn., our overnight stop, I-26 is fairly new and boasts some really spectacular scenery across the crest(s?) of the Blue Ridge. In fact, the Interstate from I-81 into Kingsport used to be I-181, but has been made part of I-26, which dead-ends at the Virginia border.

En route into Kingsport, we had to stop at Erwin, former HQ and hub of the Clinchfield, where we hadn't been since the 1970's when 4-6-0 No. 1 was doing excursions. The better photos are morning shots, but you can't be picky. It's still a center of activity for CSX. The depot is in use.

Some things never change.

Severely backlit, a coal train pulled north out of the yard and then stopped.

Back at the engine servicing area.

We went on to Kingsport, got our motel, and drove into town to meet long-time friends, some of the old "Clinchfield mafia" of railfans, Our waitress at a nice riverside seafood restaurant took our picture. From left: C.K. "Ken" Marsh Jr., yours truly, Carol, Patsy Marsh, Charlotte DeVault and David DeVault. Ron Flanary and his wife, Wilma, had to cancel out as he was ill; they live up in western Virginia, probably 45 minutes or more away from Kingsport.

Next morning we did a quick swing thru town, and around the huge Tennessee Eastman plant (where David and Ken spent most of their careers), before leaving Kingsport. Here's the local switcher at work near the depot.

Driving west on US 23 in the foot of Virginia, we passed an eastbound (by compass here, bound for Tennessee) NS coal train, and doubled back to shoot him passing thru Watkins siding.

Three DPU's on the rear.

The last time I was at Copper Creek, where the Clinchfield soars high and the Southern goes across down low, I was chasing an Independence Limited with Southern's CP Royal Hudson 2839. Now, the trees basically hide the NS's ex-Southern line, where that coal train above had just come from.

We did not detour up to the Natural Tunnel; I've been there, in fact, ridden thru it on an excursion in 1966.

Perhaps 30 more miles to the west, 4-lane US 58 was up high and we suddenly looked down, to the right (north), on two mainline railroad tracks. What is this, I thought. Well, I was surprised to see we were just south of the Hagan Tunnel and switchback of CSX (former L&N), where the tunnel is under the Kentucky-Virginia State Line. What we'd seen was the south tail track, and an extra track, for an eastbound train, which would come thru the tunnel to that site, change ends, go northwest around a wye connection, then reverse ends again and proceed east and cross above the line it just used. I was in Alabama at a GM&O Historical convention in 1986 when a multi-day excursion behind L&N 4-6-2 152 covered this line, a trip never to be repeated, so I missed this area. Then again I have 32 miles up to Citronelle, Ala. from Mobile on the old GM&O during that convention that few if any other mileage collectors have. You can't get it all. I managed a few shots of the tracks at the wye. This first view looks west on the connection.

This view looks north; the line toward Norton, Va., end of the old L&N, is visible; Norton would be to the right. The line that has come thru the tunnel is to our right here.

This looks basically east under the track, at the north end of the two tracks we saw from the highway bridge.

We went back up onto US 58 and back east to shoot what we'd seen, now that we knew what it was all about. We look north here; over the hill is Kentucky, I believe.

The tunnel is off to the right; the wye connection is to the left; you cannot see the east-west line for the trees, November or not.

Down the road a piece, we saw a sign at a side-road junction and tried to find this place. All we ever found was this other sign. We went as far as the Tennessee state line, some 4 miles -- you can tell we're deep into Virginia's narrow foot.

Looking back into Virginia from Tennessee.

One objective of this routing was to go thru the Cumberland Gap and into Middlesboro, Ky., all new for me despite my year of college in Knoxville, Tenn. The highway has gone "under" the Gap for years, but hey, I'll take it. The Gap is visible to the right, but all we got was a glimpse with no place to pull over for a photo -- just two more hills forming a "V" anyway.

This was our lunch stop in Middlesboro, adding another Sonic state for me.

No depot in Middlesboro, where the L&N met the Southern, but we did find this caboose and a short coal train in the old Southern yard.

Checking out the jct. on CSX up at Pineville, Ky., we were surprised by a 4-unit light engine set going south toward Middlesboro; this is a going-away view.

At the edge of Barbourville, Ky., we found this northbound (to Corbin) coal train parked on the siding, no crew.

Last time I remember the Corbin depot it was the middle of the night stop (lunch offered by pre-order thru the conductor) on overnight Atlanta-Knoxville-Cincinnati train 18, in 1966.

This was about the only power shootable at Corbin.

Corbin is the birthplace of KFC, but we found only a cafe (and it wasn't mealtime), not even a gift shop! We didn't stay long.

We overnighted in Lexington, Ky., saw no trains, didn't try, and now on Standard Time for the homeward trip, it got dark around 4 p.m. In the morning we took I-64 to Louisville and saw this. We had no idea how far we'd go this day or where we would tie up.

Across the Ohio River in Jeffersonville, Ind., we got gas and then went back a mile on the access road to photo the L&I engine facility; the yard office building is where the short-lived Amtrak Kentucky Cardinal tied up for a while, until they built a platform in Louisville for it.

Carol had not seen the unique architecture of Columbus, Indiana's downtown, so we stopped at Culver's there for lunch and drove thru the downtown. This park and Cove of the Lakes covered bridge were new since I did the same thing a few years ago.

The Bartholomew County courthouse in Columbus.

On the west side of Indianapolis, we went to Plainfield's Culver's, new for me, and found this on the wall! Who knew?

In west suburban Avon, I was looking, in vain, for the "Avon Theater" which makes a brief appearance in the movie "Hoosiers." It may well be gone, or still exist but be in another town. I did no Google research on it. But the fictional town and team in Hoosiers was the Hickory Huskers, and in Avon was this elementary school, which I'd like to think is no coincidence on the name. We didn't bother to go into CSX's Avon Yard.

Driving north to I-74 to head for Illinois, we passed thru Brownsburg and stumbled onto the old Peoria & Eastern depot. turned 180 degrees from the track. The line is currently CSX and the route of Amtrak's Cardinal/Hoosier State.

My friend John Arbuckle of Kansas never told me about his estate in Brownsburg.

I needed to re-shoot the old P&E depot in Crawfordsville, which photo was ruined from an earlier visit.. The Amtrak sign at the old Monon depot is new, so I shot it too, and first.

The Peoria & Eastern (Big Four) depot is now the local FedEx office! The track is street-running thru town, not used much, goes to just west of town.

Just inside Illinois on I-74 at CSX's old C&EI Brewer Yard southeast of Danville, we found this CP trackage-rights train parked; a CSX train came up along the shady side on the 2nd track, and stopped under the I-74 bridge. This was the last train we would see close-up on the trip.

It got dark at Champaign, and we just kept going. This sunset is around Minonk, Ill., north of Bloomington on I-39. We took time out for dinner at Mendota, Ill., and just kept driving, arriving home at 9:30 or so, having covered over 600 miles this day to conclude our trip. I felt that 600 miles for two days!

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