The Norfolk Southern O-Line is a seldom used freight line on the

Norfolk Southern Railway The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad in the United States formed in 1982 with the merger of Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. With headquarters in Atlanta, the company operates 19,420 route miles (31 ...

in the Piedmont region of

North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and So ...

, running from

Winston-Salem, NC Winston-Salem is a city and the county seat of Forsyth County, North Carolina, United States. In the 2020 census, the population was 249,545, making it the second-largest municipality in the Piedmont Triad region, the 5th most populous city in N ...

Charlotte, NC Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populous ...

. Several sections are no longer in use, such as the Barium Springs to Mooresville section. While the O-Line saw much greater traffic during its heyday, the importance of the rail line to the Lake Norman region and the greater Charlotte metropolitan area have increased.

History

The O-Line was originally created by the Atlantic, Tennessee, and Ohio Railroad in 1855. During the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

, the rail line was dismantled so that the rails could be used elsewhere for the war effort. After the Civil War, the railroad was reconstructed on the original roadbed and began service again in 1871. The railroad was acquired by the Richmond & Danville Railroad shortly thereafter, until financial problems resulted in the acquisition of the railroad by Southern Railway. The O-Line dramatically increased the textile industry in the north Charlotte area and helped to bring prosperity and increased population to the towns of Huntersville, Davidson, and Mooresville. While passenger traffic declined, freight traffic continued to use the O-Line heavily until the late 1990s. The O-Line continued to be only one of two north-south Category-1 mainlines in North Carolina that did not require heavy usage of subsidiary connections.

Modern era usage

While Norfolk Southern still uses the O-Line to service several industrial customers in the area north of Charlotte, according to Lake Norman Publications, the main value of the O-Line to Norfolk Southern lies in its strategic value in negotiating with the North Carolina Railroad Company:

''The line – as Gray, Thunberg and Woods acknowledged years ago, and railroad historian and writer Dan Robie explains in an essay on the wvncrails.org website – combines with Norfolk Southern’s L-Line (between Winston-Salem and northern Mooresville) to provide an alternative to a high-demand 90-mile section of North Carolina Railroad Company (NCRC) owned track Norfolk Southern currently pays to use between Greensboro and Charlotte.''

According to news media outlets in the Charlotte region (such as WCNC), Norfolk Southern has always maintained a continuous and open stance on the possibility of CATS using the O-Line for a Commuter Rail route to Lake Norman.

References

{{reflist Railway lines in the United States Norfolk Southern Railway lines