Since the opening of the first permanent railway in 1833, hundreds of railroad companies have operated in North Carolina. Rail transportation, faster and more efficient than other methods of the era, opened new markets for the products of North Carolina's farms, factories, and mines. Over the years, North Carolina rail companies have ranged in size from well-engineered giants like the Southern Railway to temporary logging railroads like the Hemlock. Cross ties and rails were laid across almost every conceivable terrain: tidal marshes, sand hills, rolling piedmont, and mountain grades. Vulnerable to the turbulent and unregulated economies of the day, few railroad companies escaped reorganizations and receiverships during their corporate lives, often leaving tangled and contradictory histories in their passing.

In this work, the most comprehensive of its kind, the author examines in engaging narrative and wonderful photography the development of the area’s complete railroading industry—Class 1 railroads, short lines, industrial and mining roads, and logging lines. Added to the textual histories are more than three hundred photographs and illustrations, including timetables and maps for most of the lines discussed.

With dozens of never-before-published photographs, this history traces the 140-year rise, fall, and rise again of the Carolina & North-Western Railway. Charting the ups and downs of the line’s construction—the politics, squabbling, triumphs, and failures—the chronicle provides a microcosmic overview of American railroading in this story of a single line. Life on the railroad through the Great Depression, World War II, dieselization, and absorption by Southern Railway is explored, punctuated by the real-life experiences of old-timers. Nearly 200 maps and photographs complement the text. Together they deliver an inspiring, historical tale of the Carolina & North-Western.

In 1833, the Wilmington & Raleigh Rail Road Company set out to connect the port city of Wilmington to North Carolina's capital. When it was done in 1840, after changing its route, the company had completed 161 miles of track--the longest railroad in the world at the time--and provided continuous transportation from the town of Weldon on the Roanoke River to Wilmington and on to Charleston, South Carolina, by steamboat. A marvel of civil engineering by the standards of the day, the railroad constituted a tour de force of organization, finance and political will that risked the fortunes of individuals and the credit of the state. This study chronicles the project from its inception, exploring its impact on subsequent railroad development in North Carolina and its significance within the context of American railroad history as a whole.

Go inside the transition from steam to diesel, the pinnacle of rail travel and the development of the South through much of the 20th century. The Southern Railway was the pinnacle of rail service in the South for nearly 100 years. Its roots stretch back to 1827, when the South Carolina Canal & Rail Road Company was founded in Charleston to provide freight transportation and America's first regularly scheduled passenger service. Through the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Great Depression, rail lines throughout the South continued to merge, connecting Washington, D.C. to Atlanta and Charleston to Memphis. The Southern Railway was born in 1893 at the height of these mergers. It came to an end in 1982, merging with Norfolk and Western Railway to become Norfolk Southern Railway. The history of the railway lives on, however, and Norfolk Southern continues to "serve the South." In 2003, the Southern Railway Historical Association selected the Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History as the repository for its extensive archives. Included in this collection are hundreds of professional quality, black-and-white photographs taken by company photographers throughout the railway's history. While a few of these images have been seen by the public, the vast majority have not.

During Reconstruction, an alliance of southern planters and northern capitalists rebuilt the southern railway system using remnants of the Confederate railroads that had been built and destroyed during the Civil War. In the process of linking Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia by rail, this alliance created one of the largest corporations in the world, engendered bitter political struggles, and transformed the South in lasting ways, says Scott Nelson. Iron Confederacies uses the history of southern railways to explore linkages among the themes of states' rights, racial violence, labor strife, and big business in the nineteenth-century South. By 1868, Ku Klux Klan leaders had begun mobilizing white resentment against rapid economic change by asserting that railroad consolidation led to political corruption and black economic success. As Nelson notes, some of the Klan's most violent activity was concentrated along the Richmond-Atlanta rail corridor. But conflicts over railroads were eventually resolved, he argues, in agreements between northern railroad barons and Klan leaders that allowed white terrorism against black voters while surrendering states' control over the southern economy.

Originally published by UNC Press in 1952, The Railroads of the Confederacy tells the story of the first use of railroads on a major scale in a major war. Robert Black presents a complex and fascinating tale, with the railroads of the American South playing the part of tragic hero in the Civil War: at first vigorous though immature; then overloaded, driven unmercifully, starved for iron; and eventually worn out--struggling on to inevitable destruction in the wake of Sherman's army, carrying the Confederacy down with them. With maps of all the Confederate railroads and contemporary photographs and facsimiles of such documents as railroad tickets, timetables, and soldiers' passes, the book will captivate railroad enthusiasts as well as readers interested in the Civil War.