Library exhibit honors city's railroad history
Hurry, as though you're trying to catch a train leaving the station.
A small, but informative exhibit about railroading in Greensboro will remain in place only until Dec. 15, on the second floor of the Central Public Library on North Church Street.
Created by the Greensboro chapter of the National Railroad Historical Society, the display stresses what the railroad has meant to the city.
After the first train arrived in 1856, the town began to grow. By the late 19th century, Greensboro was a city with rail lines converging from many directions. Being a rail hub led a newspaper in 1890 to nickname Greensboro the Gate City.
The exhibit also informs viewers that Greensboro, now served by the all-freight Norfolk Southern Railway, was once a multi-railroad town. There was the large Southern Railway (now Norfolk Southern) and the Cape Fear & Yadkin Valley Railroad, which reached Greensboro in 1887.
And from 1856 to the 1890s, a third railroad ran through the city - the North Carolina Railroad, which was the city's first in 1856. It ran trains from Morehead City to Charlotte, and brought about the existence of High Point (the highest point on the line) and Burlington, founded as Company Shops, where the NCRR repaired its locomotives and cars.
In the 1890s, the NCRR ceased operating a rolling railroad, and leased its tracks to Southern. The NCRR remains an active corporation, collecting rent from Norfolk Southern and looking after property along its right of way.
A bigger railroad didn't always mean better. A photograph in the display shows an embarrassing moment in the history of Southern Railway, whose double-tracked main line between Washington and Atlanta came through Greensboro.
In 1941, a faculty switch sent a Southern steam locomotive hooked to a coal tender roaring through a short side track behind the Southern Passenger Station on East Washington Street (now the Galyon Depot for trains and buses.)
As the three crew members leaped to safety, the enormous engine smashed through a retaining wall and dropped 20 feet into the station parking lot. Thousands came downtown to gawk at the wreckage.
The smaller CF&YV went from Wilmington to Mt. Airy, by way of Greensboro. In the 1890s, the line was split into two sections, with the northern portion from Sanford to Mt. Airy renamed the Atlantic & Yadkin Railway.
Southern Railway owned the A&Y, but let it operate as an independent subsidiary until 1950, when it was absorbed into the vast Southern system.
For a while in those early years, the A&Y used as its headquarters the old Ralph Gorrell house, which belonged to the family who sold the land needed for Greensboro's founding in 1808. The house stood in what's now a partially abandoned rail freight yard downtown.
The exhibit includes stationery and rules books from the old CF&YV and A&Y and a photo of its Greensboro station, which stood on the south side of the South Elm railroad crossing.
In 1899, the station was converted to a freight depot after Southern built a big new passenger station on the other side of the crossing. A&Y passenger trains began using it. The big red brick building, with Southern engraved over the entrance, still stands. The railroad, which moved to what's now the Galyon Depot in 1927, has used the old station has offices in the decades since then.
The exhibit includes a reproduction of an A&Y timetable. A morning passenger train left Mt. Airy at 8:10 and arrived Greeensboro at 11:30 with a great view of Pilot Mountain along the way. While Southern engines often pulled A&Y trains, for a time the A&Y had its own lettering on locomotives and passenger and freight cars.
The two railroads also maintained separate turntables for turning around locomotives. The display includes a photo of Southern's turntable, which was downtown near the South Elm crossing.
The A&Y's turntable occupied a spot in the triangle formed by Southern's main line (now Norfolk Southern's main line) and two sets of A&Y tracks that veer from the Southern mainline and converged at Lee Street.
When A&Y trains approached from Sanford, they used one set of tracks, which squeezed behind buildings on South Elm Street, to reach the station and its freight yard beside the South Elm cross. The station is long gone, but freight yard, now partially empty and weedy, remains. The city would like to turn it into a park.
After loading at the station or freight yard, A&Y trains backed along tracks behind the South Elm buildings and crossed Lee Street. Northbound trains then used the second set of A&Y tracks. They crossed Eugene Street, recended a hill and forked. One track went up to the hill to connect with Southern's main line. The other went under the Southern tracks. Those rails took A&Y trains by Greensboro College and beside Battleground Road and on to Mt. Airy.
The A&Y's first passenger train stop outside Greensboro was the Battleground, a community next to the battlefield where the Battle of Guilford Courthouse was fought in 1781.
From Battleground, trains went on to Summerfield and what used to be Green Pond, which changed its name to Stokesdale after the railroad's arrival.
According to Stokesdale's web site, the town is named for a Mr. Stokes, "who was either an executive of the railroad, a conductor on the train or the surveyor who surveyed the area."
The old A&Y tracks that formed the triangle with Southern main line remain in place. Turntables long ago became obsolete. Norfolk Southern engines use these tracks forming the triangle - called a wye in railroad parlance - to turn locomotives around.
The A&T tracks to Sanford remain, with Norfolk Southern running a tri-weekly freight to the town of Gulf. As for the A&Y tracks going north, they now end behind two shopping centers facing Battleground and Lawndale Drive, just beyond Fernwood Drive.
The only reason A&Y tracks remain in the northern portion of the city is to provide freight car service to Chandler Concrete Co. on Mill Street. After finishing at Chandler, the switcher proceeds north to the shopping centers and used an old wye to turn around the locomotive. The wye was vital when Sears operated a huge mail order plant on site of one of the shopping centers.
Eventually, plans call for the removal of the A&Y tracks along Battleground and rail bed becoming part of the city's greenway for hiking and biking. The A&Y rail bed from Pisgah Church Road north to beyond the Bur-Mil Club is paved and heavily used for recreation. People enjoy crossing Lake Brandt twice on former A&Y trestles.
Rail buffs who listen to railroad scanners still hear the initials A&Y spoken. Crews refer to the A&Y wye downtown and the old freight yard as the A&Y yard and the line to the cement plant as the A&Y line.
Heidi Schachtschneider Cary, a library staffer who handles exhibits, says the railroad display has gotten good reaction from viewers, many of whom say they weren't aware of the railroad's role in Greensboro's history.
"Everyone needs to see this exhibit and to know what the railroad has meant to Greensboro," she says. "I didn't know until now."
