The State University Railroad is a 10.2 mile
railroad
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
spur of the
North Carolina Railroad
The North Carolina Railroad is a state-owned rail corridor extending from Morehead City, North Carolina to Charlotte, North Carolina. The railroad carries over seventy freight trains offered by the Norfolk Southern Railway and eight passenger ...
that began offering service from
Glenn, North Carolina, near
Hillsborough to a point west of
Chapel Hill, North Carolina on January 1, 1882.
History
As railroads developed in North Carolina during the eighteenth century, the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...
's relatively isolated location meant that it did not lie along any rail lines initially. A major east-west rail corridor between
Greensboro
Greensboro (; formerly Greensborough) is a city in and the county seat of Guilford County, North Carolina, United States. It is the List of municipalities in North Carolina, third-most populous city in North Carolina after Charlotte, North Car ...
in the west and
Goldsboro in the east passed eight miles to the north.
, a former Confederate general and the owner of an iron mine just north of Chapel Hill, obtained a charter in February 1873 for the Chapel Hill Iron Mountain Railroad Company,
but the railroad was not organized until after the name was changed to the State University Railroad in March 1879,
[
] with the support of UNC president
Kemp Battle.
In order that the students at the
University of North Carolina
The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sy ...
not be tempted from their studies, a state statute decreed that the end of the spur be located at least a mile from the school's campus.
The rail line began service in 1881,
and the first train, known as "The Whooper,"
was a locomotive and two passenger cars that made the run from University Station to Chapel Hill Station twice daily. The trip from university station to Chapel Hill Station took an hour traveling southbound and seventy minutes northbound. The current town of
Carrboro
Carrboro is a town in Orange County in the U.S. state of North Carolina. The population was 21,295 at the 2020 census. , then known as West End, started to grow as a result of the railroad.
wrote the famous song "
Freight Train
Rail freight transport is the use of railroads and trains to transport cargo as opposed to human passengers.
A freight train, cargo train, or goods train is a group of freight cars (US) or goods wagons (International Union of Railways) haul ...
" as a young teenager, inspired mainly by the train that for years passed behind her house on Lloyd Street in Carrboro.
In the 1920s, the line was extended into the UNC campus for a time, where it was used to transport construction materials for campus buildings, including
Wilson Library
The Louis Round Wilson Library is a library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Completed in 1929, it served as the university's main library until 1984. Today, it houses several special collections. The dome rises 85 feet over the ...
.
The company still exists as a subsidiary of the
Norfolk Southern Railway.
As passenger service ended by 1940, UNC's new power plant was built to take advantage of the rail line. The primary traffic on the rail line currently comes from freight deliveries of coal to this power plant.
See also
*
Norfolk Southern Railway
References
External links
Norfolk Southern Official website
Companies based in Chapel Hill-Carrboro, North Carolina
North Carolina railroads
Predecessors of the Southern Railway (U.S.)
Railway companies established in 1879
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