An 1892 replica of the Tornado, the first train to arrive in Raleigh. Currently housed in a museum in Hamlet, NC

1840 was a big year for Raleigh. In fact, it’s one of the most important in the city’s history. On March 21, 1840, the first steam locomotive came roaring and screeching into Raleigh on wooden tracks (the iron strips to cover them would come later). That same year would see the construction of the city’s most recognized and celebrated architectural treasure: the new State Capitol.

A New Transit Option and an Architectural Icon

The new railroad was the Raleigh and Gaston, and its journey began in 1835 when the General Assembly chartered the rail company with the sale of $800,000 in stock. Later that year, engineers begun bridging a river they named “Gaston”, in honor of Judge Gaston of Raleigh. The town of Gaston is near this river near the NC-VA border.

In 1840, the steam engine arrived to a wildly jubilant crowd:

[...] That all changed with the railroad “craze,” launched locally in 1833 with Ms. Sarah Polk successfully dogging Mr. William to get into the game via a mile or so of experimental line drawn by oxen to run stone from a quarry near National Cemetery to the capitol site. The oxen were laid off in 1840 by the menacing promise of steam when the Raleigh and Gaston’s English-made Tornado shrieked and huffed the into town on the last 5 miles of fresh wood tracks, cheered on by the drunks amid a city-wide 3 day party.

– Peter Eichenberger

The celebration also saw the city decorated with colored lamps and transparencies:

The completion of the road was hailed by a celebration which lasted for three days. From distant counties men, women and children came to see the new wonders — the State-house, the railroad and locomotive. At night the trees of Capitol Square were illuminated with colored lamps, as well also as was Fayetteville Street. Gorgeous transparencies could be everywhere seen. One was a representation of a locomotive, another of the State-house.

–Moses Amis, Historical Raleigh [PDF]

Even in 1840, Raleigh citizens had an appreciation for public visual art downtown.

The 1861 Raleigh and Gaston Building on Salisbury Street

From the ‘Raleigh and Gaston’ to ‘CSX’

About 20 years later, the rail line built an office building on Halifax Street. This early Victorian Italianate structure was moved in 1977 to make way for new construction on the government mall. This is the largest structure ever moved from its original site in the city of Raleigh.

CSX rail yard today, near Seaboard Station

It became known as the Seaboard Office Building in 1871 when the line was acquired by Seaboard and Roanoke Railroad. Seaboard later became CSX; short for Chesapeake & Ohio, Seaboard Coast Line, and Xpanded.

The Tornado, showing R.&G.R.R. (Raleigh and Gaston Railroad) from the railroad museum in Hamlet, NC (Tornado Building)

The 119 Year Old Replica

The original Tornado steam engine was decommissioned and dismantled after the Civil War. Some 52 years after the Tornado first arrived in Raleigh, a full-size replica of the original engine was constructed for the 1892 Raleigh Centennial Exposition Parade. It was built in the Raleigh and Gaston shops near Peace Street.

The 1900 train station and railroad museum in Hamlet, NC

Traveling to Another Town to Learn Raleigh History

If you’re interested in seeing a bit of railroad history and the Tornado, you need only drive about two hours away to Hamlet, NC. The beautiful Victorian railroad station has been restored and currently houses a train museum. It is also still an active station.

The Tornado is located across the street from the museum, in the aptly named Tornado Building. The building is normally locked, but any of the folks in the railroad museum will be more than happy to show you around and tell the history of the first steam engine to arrive in Raleigh.

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Were one to compile a list of major cities, state capitals no less, fueled and stoked by the “latest” technology, Raleigh would likely head the list. Her physical isolation and very location were a result of a fix for political problems sparked by sectionalism. That all changed with the railroad “craze,” launched locally in 1833 with Ms. Sarah Polk successfully dogging Mr. William to get into the game via a mile or so of experimental line drawn by oxen to run stone from a quarry near National Cemetery to the capitol site. The oxen were laid off in 1840 by the menacing promise of steam when the Raleigh and Gaston’s English-made Tornado shrieked and huffed the into town on the last 5 miles of fresh wood tracks, cheered on by the drunks amid a city-wide 3 day party.

The termination of the line, the hand dug “wye” that allowed trains to turn around and head back north is still extent, marked by a recently replaced green and white, highway-type sign I coveted for years reading simply “Boylan” a nod to the immediate landowner, William Boylan, also an officer in the Raleigh and Gaston. Boylan was also Raleigh’s first rail commuter, riding his own train home at night, mounting a private stairway up from the track level. Since then “Boylan” and Raleigh have been synonymous in the industry. The line was continued west out of “Boylan’s Hole” around 1850 at a necessary grade of a percent and a half or so, the steepest east of the mountains.

The talk of high speed rail has brought back the early 90s, whiling away the end of the Reagan/Bush years with the likes of Jim Shell, the Larson boys, Russ, David Weaver, Credle, etc. We’d regularly school up, swill beer and jabber-jaw. One evening the news du jour of Raleigh losing passenger rail service in lieu of Charlotte ignited heated talk of a public reaction, a display guaranteed to make our dismay a topic for the news. From a seed that sprouted growing up in Raleigh, the grade out of Boylan formed the basis of a shifting, mutable plan that grew larger with every beer, less Jesse James, more Salvador Dali.

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In the days before X-box we kids created our own fun “down at the tracks”, never much more than hopping freights (you’d best get off before the end of the turn in Cary) and squashing pennies, strictly small change compared to legends of State students lubing the tracks with crankcase drainings, Octagon soap or what-have-you, the combination of grade and lube creating an loss of traction that would snarl the line. We borrowed history and expanded upon it, the plan to obtain a schedule and upstream of the late night Silver Star heading out of town, deploy a team and soap the tracks. Once we had the train under control and before the crew had time to react we would deliver our note into the flanks of the train, amid a great spray of aspic. Everyone had seen tennis ball cannons before, cans, tape and Zippo fluid. As our demands were to be attached (don’t ask me why) to a Prairie Home brand canned chicken, the poor pre-cooked critter’s one and only flight, our improvised “Skunk Works” needed something more robust, i.e. schedule 80 plastic pipe fueled with propane and swivel-mounted to my old Plymouth Fury convertible.

The plan began to began to come unglued as we scoured the shelves of the old “Grim” Dixie, on Person, divine intervention announced by the clerk.

“Aw, they quit making them las’ month.”

We immediately began planning on simulating the original round. The real end was fomented by a Raleigh mission I still enjoy, even in these Internet days. On to the D.H. Hill Library for a look at steel wheel-track adhesion, something I knew little about. Turns out, neither did the experts.

“The nature of friction is so complicated that other basic theories have been advanced, each of which tends to explain particular aspects of the problem,” read one report on experiments at British Railways Electrical Laboratory in Willesden. The literature included an “interlock” theory, mechanical in nature, a “molecular” theory, where the molecules of steel of track and wheel fuse for an instant under the great weight of the rolling stock and Schurmann’s “electrostatic” theory, “which while never generally accepted, has been used by effectively by certain authorities.” The kicker was the part about how “the contaminating effect could be removed only by re-grinding the surfaces or by heating the surfaces to 250o.”

That did it. Amid a relieved sense of defeat, I called a meeting and rendered a distilled synopsis of the findings. I had figured a good cleaning with carbon tetrachloride, naptha or some other solvent would undo our mischief. Now I was forced to envision the track crews, track-mounted equipment and showers of sparks undoing the paralysis created by our mops and drywall buckets. G-men fanning out across Raleigh was not the sort of fame I ever counted on. Y’see, railroad right of ways are Federal jurisdiction. The gods must have heard us because, of course, Raleigh has retained and expanded our rail life.

For years I wore that story out to whomever would listen, the justification being that we all loved trains and were determined to try to induce the powers to recognize that. Plus, fun’s fun, right? That thesis underwent a modification recently. I’ve been on a train kick the last month or two. One morning, I heard the Silver Star approaching the Cabarrus street station, intercepted it and approached the engineer, a straight-up union sort, following his descent from the locomotive. As we made small talk, I asked what he thought of his job. “Pain in the neck” and “nerve wracking” were two of the terms he used. I asked about the track-greasing. He winced. “I’ve slid through a town before.” In an instant, a change of perspective. The pro-forma story took on the air of cussing out a shop clerk over the price of pork.

My change of heart perhaps triggered another sort of cosmic intervention around the same time one day as I strolled across the Boylan Bridge. I spied a Norfolk-Southern track crew futzing with the same “Boylan” sign I planned to steal for decades. I watched as the big neck dude tossed it unceremoniously to the ground.

“Hey,” I yelled. What you gonna do with that?”

“You want it? Come on and get it.”

You can read more articles from Peter Eichenberger at petrblt.

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The Piedmont #76, Charlotte to Raleigh route, is the Amtrak line that serves only North Carolina. From Charlotte it makes stops in Kannapolis, Salisbury, High Point, Greensboro, Burlington and Durham. It ends is Raleigh. The reverse route is a part of the Carolinian line, train #79.

If you make it down to the station around 8:45PM or so, you can see it arriving. The cars are empty of passengers in the video above because Raleigh is the last stop on the daily line.

I’ve been planning on taking a day trip to Charlotte by train for some time now. Has anyone reading ever done this? Looks like it would be a very early arrival time and a 9PM re-arrival time.

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This was a Norfolk Southern train inbound to Raleigh early in the morning of Halloween 1987 from Linwood Yard over near Salisbury, NC.  I’m fairly certain it was NS Train #352.

Overturned millitary vehicles

Derailed cars full of lime

Anyway, the train had a couple of long flat cars loaded with military trucks that were placed toward the front of the train. Behind them was that load of wood and the hopper cars full of lime, the cars that are sitting at funny angles.

The curve at Boylan is a pretty nasty one by railroad standards – a 10 mph speed limit and at the bottom of a long grade that begins all the way back at the fairgrounds.  The feedback I got from the railroad guys was that the long flat cars should have been toward the back end of the train.  The weight of the hoppers and the rest of the train pushed on the long flats and simply popped ‘em out of the tracks as the train crawled through the curve at Boylan.

Pandemonium ensued, and this is the mess that resulted.  The train geek underground telegraph kicked in and somebody called me about the wreck. I had just this one roll of Kodachrome in the camera and shot what I could as I was able to more or less go anywhere I wanted around the perimeter. There is no way that would be allowed now!

The small (120 ton capacity) derrick seen above, #903025, used to be based here in Raleigh. It came out pretty quickly to begin the clean up.

A much larger derrick (250 ton capcity, two photos above)  came over from Linwood Yard.

It took them most of the rest of that day to clean up the mess if my memory serves me.  I was also told that the engineer and conductor got 30 days unpaid leave as penalty for the wreck.

About the photographer: Craig Zeni went to high school in Raleigh and graduated from NCSU.  He started doing railroad photography in 1983 and has been at it ever since. You can view more of his railroad photography on his web site.

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As is evident by the photos sometimes posted here, train spotting is a hobby of mine. Part of this is from hearing family stories when I was younger. My grandfather on my mom’s side spent years seeing the country by hopping boxcars. It was by train hopping that he wound up in Washington state to join the CC Camp before heading off to World War II. My mom’s grandfather was a conductor as well.

above image credit: uliveandyouburn

My dad’s pop was the conductor of “The General“, part of the L&N line (later CSX). During The Civil War, The General was involved in Andrews Raid–which eventually became known as The Great Locomotive Chase. It was later restored as an oil burner for the Civil War Centennial. He’s in a photo on the linked page, as well as my grandmother. He later was the conductor of the Hummingbird. Unfortunately, I never got to know him or my grandfather and great-grandfather from my mom’s side of the family.

Although family history plays some part in my interest in trains, a good part of it lies in the experience of simply watching one go by. The loud roar (or screeching) of metal train wheels on the rails, the highly efficient humming diesel engine, and the overpowering (and often startling) horn is just a humbling experience. It’s also a throwback to the past, as locomotive transportation is what enabled the United States to expand westward during the 1800s. Many times when I’ve sat watching them go by, I’ve pondered what it would be like to hop on one without knowing where it was going–just to wind up in a new place and see the way there in a new way.

Amtrak operated GM F95PHI near the former West Martin Street Viaduct.

Having two dogs and having a full time job (not to mention keeping up with this site) makes that just a dream, though. Instead, I’m often hanging out near the Boylan Wye, the Amtrak Station, or other various lookout points taking pictures and wishing I could spend a month riding rails aimlessly.

And speaking of the Amtrak Station, it’s one of the busiest along the NY to Miami corridor. I have yet to have seen it, but I hear you can occasionally see a private railcar attached to the end of the passenger cars.

Another angle of the GM SD60s near the CSX Turntable close to Seaboard Station

It isn’t hard to find relics of Raleigh’s Railroad History. According to Will, the turntable partially visible in the image above has been there since the days of steam engines. He goes on to say that:

There was a brick roundhouse where the engines were serviced, and a water tank and a coaling station used to refuel the steam locomotives. You can still see the concrete strips radiating out from the turntable which supported the tracks leading to each roundhouse stall.

It also isn’t hard to find great vantage points to watch trains in downtown Raleigh. They are always slow moving at the crossing with West Hargett Street. It was here uliveandyouburn and I decided to make a quick hop off in front of a crowd of club kids leaving Five Star. Hanging on to the side ladder of a grain car is no way to travel at high speeds!

Such a small stop sign for such a large engine

To read a great train hopping story, visit uliveandyouburn’s blog to read about winding up in an unknown town and having to ask a store clerk where you are.

above image of the CSX yard credit of: uliveandyouburn

Stay tuned, as there is more Raleigh Railroading history in store to come from Raleigh Boy!

above image of a lost caboose credit of uliveandyouburn

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Not long ago I wrote about the Boylan wye, and described what remains of that former downtown train switchyard and industrial district. Its most prominent relic can be easily seen from the Boylan Ave bridge: a rusted cement hopper towering over the site. But virtually invisible to most observers today is the weed-choked and debris-strewn sunken area that is the footprint of the former Smith Coal and Oil Co. coal yard.

This is a view of a portion of the Boylan wye from the bridge in 1970. The concrete plant is on the left and the coal yard is just right of center, below the two box cars. The present-day photo at the top shows the tracks the boxcars were parked on in 1970. The remnants of the coal yard are just to the right of these tracks.

In the winter of 1972-73 I drove a delivery truck at the coal yard, which was then owned and operated by Mr. Norwood Smith. I had dropped out of college after my sophomore year and worked a series of blue-collar type jobs until I decided to return to school a few years later. I must say working in the coal yard was the most memorable experience of them all.

The coal yard was about 10-15 feet below track level and encompassed an area of probably several hundred square feet. It was located across Hargett St. from an abandoned ice plant, and a gravel driveway led down into the site. The office and weigh station were near the entrance gate. In the yard itself was a Civil War era brick structure where the trucks were parked and coal was bagged and stored. Jutting into the yard was the trestle of an overshot loading system. The trains would back a coal car in from the main track and position it above the bins located below the trestle. Coal was graded according to its intended use (e.g. stoves, fireplace or furnace, etc.) and the particular grade was released into the bin. From there it was shoveled onto delivery trucks or into 50 pound bags.

This is the ruin of the overshot coal loading trestle.

I made my deliveries in a 2-ton pickup, the bed of which was divided into three half-ton sections. Most often my shotgun was Leroy, a grizzled, one-eyed black man of about 60 or so. Some of the workers in the coal yard shied away from me, suspicious probably, of why a young white kid would want to engage in such gritty work. But for some reason Leroy liked me. As we drove around the city delivering coal, he would occasionally reminisce about what Raleigh was like when he was young. Sometimes while making deliveries we’d drop in on friends of his and stand around a radiant coal stove, taking swigs from a pint bottle of MD 20-20. But as a rule, Leroy didn’t talk much, so I was kind of surprised one day as we drove over the Boylan Ave. bridge when out of the blue he announced: “See over yonder,” motioning to the now demolished state penitentiary. “I done time there.” Before I could think, I blurted out “For what?” “Killed my wife; caught her in bed with another man.” I don’t know why Leroy chose to share that bit of information with me; but he never mentioned it again, and I sure wasn’t going to bring it up. I never did find out how he lost his eye.

This is a view of the state penitentiary as it appeared from the Boylan Ave. bridge in 1970. All the structures seen here are gone.

Another denizen of the coal yard was Jimmy. Tall and dignified, he wore black horn-rimmed glasses and was always smoking a pipe (which never seemed to be lit). Jimmy was the go-to man if anyone ever needed advice on anything. He also served as arbiter in any dispute that might arise among the other workers. Jimmy had worked for Mr. Smith for many years and by this time in his career he didn’t drive a truck anymore, and he didn’t shovel coal. Jimmy was just Jimmy — the stabilizing force in the yard. He would accompany me on service calls to the handful of customers who still heated their homes with coal furnaces. He was the stoker. Jimmy knew I wasn’t experienced enough to handle that job, so he would stoke the glowing fire pit and I would shovel in the coal. I admired and respected Jimmy, for by his example I learned the dignity of work.

Then there was Junior. He was a short wirey man, probably about 30 years old, and had worked in the coal yard since he was a teenager. Junior didn’t have a driver’s license, so his main job was shoveling. Jimmy also assigned him various tasks around the yard to keep him busy, as he was somewhat of a lay-about. Unfortunately, he was also a drinker, and it was not uncommon that he would reek of alcohol at nine o’clock in the morning. One time he showed up for work intoxicated and was causing a ruckus among the other workers. Mr. Smith came down into the yard and confronted him, whereupon Junior, swaying unsteadily back and forth, protested: “I ain’t drunk Mr. Smith!” He was sent home and told to sober up and come back to work. As far as I know, Mr. Smith never fired anyone.

I believe Mr. Smith had “married into” the coal business, but I was never quite sure. Before it became Smith Coal and Oil Co. in the mid-1950s, the company had operated for decades as Merritt Coal Co. The motto “coals and oils of merit” was emblazoned on all the company trucks. Mr. Smith was of the “old style” brand of Raleigh businessman: paternalistic, yet genuinely benevolent toward his employees. I know — for he helped me out of a jam or two during the time I worked for him. His son, who handled the fuel oil end of the business, was in his late-twenties. He had just recently been discharged from the army after a tour in Vietnam. He didn’t really associate with the coal workers and seemed to keep pretty much to himself. And I know for a fact he didn’t want to take over the coal business from his father.

I think Smith Coal and Oil went out of business 25 or more years ago. I really don’t know: It seemed to just sort of fade into oblivion. Nowadays when something sparks a memory of my stint at the coal yard I always think of Leroy, Jimmy, Junior and Mr. Smith and his son the Vietnam vet, and wonder what ever happened to them. And even though the old Boylan Ave bridge and the old state pen are long gone, whenever I drive across the bridge there now, I never fail to recall Leroy’s confession to me that day so long ago — And I and still wonder to this day how he lost that eye.

Once bustling with activity, this is how the coal yard looks today.

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Pictured above are a set of grainer cars near the Boylan Wye.

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Bloomsbury Estates in the background

Collecting passengers

The last carriage

At the crossing

Whirring off into the night

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A stopped train on the tracks at the intersection of West Jones Street and Glenwood Avenue proved to be no obstacle for revelers on a Friday night. At first, many hopped under it like the gentleman pictured above.

After a few people did a ‘tuck and roll’ to get under the train, most simply hopped between the cars filled with Anhydrous Ammonia.

What was particularly interesting is that there were only 3 more cars out of view of this intersection. It really would have only taken an extra minute or two to walk around the last carriage.

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The car in the first photo has been undergoing restoration for some time (since 1998, according to one account). As recently as last Sunday there was someone doing welding work on the inside of the car.

There’s an interesting (old) discussion at Greenspun about the history of this particular car:

The Villa Real is a Pullman plan 3411 10 section 3 double bedroom car. This car is shown on the 1950 Pullman list of cars as not being owned by any railroad. It was one of the cars that remained in the Pullman pool. Interestingly enough, the car is shown as not being air- conditioned, perhaps that being a reason why the car was not sold to a railroad and then leased back to Pullman. The car was apparently sold sometime before 1961, as it is not shown in the 1961 Pullman list of cars, either as in the Pullman pool, or in government storage.

…

“Villa Real” was built by Pullman in 1910 as “Lenover”. This was a 12 section, 1 drawing room and 1 compartment sleeper, Lot 3800, for assignment to the Pennsylvania Railroad. In January, 1931 it was converted to a different plan and renamed “Villa Real”.

When commenting on my post about the Seaboard Station RR turntable, a reader (Dave) gave the following account of the importance of Seaboard Station in New York to Miami trips:

The turntable was part of the complex used by the CSX predecessor railroad, Seaboard Air Line Railroad for their New York to Miami passenger trains. A set of diesel engines would pull the coaches from Richmond, VA to Raleigh. Then, the trainset would be passed off to a fresh set of engines to continue on to Florida.

The engines from Virginia would be refueled and turned around on the turntable to take a northbound passenger train back to Virginia. And, those engines from points south would be refueled and turned back around to head south again. This was necessary back in the late 1930′s because diesel train technology was still very new and didn’t have the ability to go the whole distance like engines of today.

The reason that the Seaboard didn’t pull their trains all the way to New York was simple. A passenger leaving Pennsylvania Station on say the Orange Blossom Special would be carried by the Pennsylvania Railroad’s electric GG1 engines as far as Washington, DC on PRR-owned tracks. Then, they would be passed off to the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac to Richmond who owned those tracks. Then, the Seaboard Air Line would continue the journey to Florida on their trackage. Even with all of that maneuvering, the travel time from New York to Miami was only 24 hours because the running times at night through the Carolinas would be as much as 100 miles per hour. That’s a far cry from what it is today!!

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