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 t ...
that began offering service from
Glenn, North Carolina, near
Hillsborough
Hillsborough may refer to:
Australia
*Hillsborough, New South Wales, a suburb of Lake Macquarie
Canada
*Hillsborough, New Brunswick
*Hillsborough Parish, New Brunswick
* Hillsborough, Nova Scotia, in Inverness County
*Hillsborough (electoral d ...
to a point west of
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Chapel Hill is a town in Orange County, North Carolina, Orange, Durham County, North Carolina, Durham and Chatham County, North Carolina, Chatham counties in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Its population was 61,960 in the 2020 United States Ce ...
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. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which r ...
'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 third-most populous city in North Carolina after Charlotte and Raleigh, the 69th-most populous city in th ...
in the west and
Goldsboro in the east passed eight miles to the north.
Robert F. Hoke
Robert Frederick Hoke (May 27, 1837 – July 3, 1912) was a Confederate major general during the American Civil War. He was present at one of the earliest battles, the Battle of Big Bethel, where he was commended for coolness and judgment. Wo ...
, 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 Sys ...
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, 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 rail transport, railroads and trains to transport cargo as opposed to human passengers.
A freight train, cargo train, or goods train is a group of Railroad car#Freight cars, freight cars (US) or goods wagon ...
" 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
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 (3 ...
.
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
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 (3 ...
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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