{"id":20787,"date":"2013-12-23T09:06:42","date_gmt":"2013-12-23T14:06:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/raleighpublicrecord.org\/?p=20787"},"modified":"2013-12-30T16:06:58","modified_gmt":"2013-12-30T21:06:58","slug":"raleighs-rail-history-hidden-off-capital-boulevard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/news\/2013\/12\/23\/raleighs-rail-history-hidden-off-capital-boulevard\/","title":{"rendered":"Raleigh\u2019s Rail History, Hidden Off Capital Boulevard"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note: This post has been updated from its original version to clarify and correct some information.<\/em><\/p>\n

Near the would-be interchange for the new Peace Street and Capital Boulevard bridge sits two remnants of Raleigh\u2019s railroad past. <\/p>\n

The Johnson Street roundhouse no longer stands, but visitors to the area willing to duck past a \u201cno trespassing\u201d sign can still see the steam-era turntable that was used during Raleigh\u2019s railroading heyday. <\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

Karen Tam \/ Raleigh Public Record<\/p>

The old turntable. <\/p><\/div>\n

Considered a historical resource, the City of Raleigh and the NCDOT had to change some of the plans for the Peace Street and Capital Boulevard bridge<\/a> to avoid the turntable, parts of which are more than 100 years old. <\/p>\n

The Johnson Street roundhouse \u2014 named for famous engineer Albert Johnson \u2014 is the second roundhouse in the area. The first was built by the Raleigh & Gaston Railroad in 1860. It served the railroad until it was demolished at the turn of the 20th century. <\/p>\n

The second roundhouse was built around 1909 after the Raleigh & Gaston Railroad merged with several others to become the Seaboard Air Line Railroad. <\/p>\n

The 18-stall brick building included a 100-foot-long turntable that was used to position locomotives properly. The roundhouse was primarily used as a repair shop for steam locomotives. <\/p>\n

\"Another<\/a>

Karen Tam \/ Raleigh Public Record<\/p>

Another view of the turntable. <\/p><\/div>\n

The Original Union Station<\/strong>
\nRaleigh\u2019s original Union Station was built in 1890, and the building still remains near Fire Station No. 1 downtown. <\/p>\n

By the early 1900s, the stub-end station became too small for technology. The small station required trains to back up or pull into it, which didn\u2019t work for longer trains. <\/p>\n

During the 1920s, 30s and 40s, private rail companies attempted to work with the City of Raleigh to build a new station that could accommodate longer trains, said Allan Paul, deputy director of the NCDOT Rail Division. <\/p>\n

\u201cFor various reasons, the City of Raleigh and the private train companies were never able to agree on where that station would be located,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\"N_53_15_9615<\/a>

NC State Archives<\/p>

Seaboard Air Lines Depot, 1950<\/p><\/div>\n

Seaboard Air Line, which had the dominate number of passenger trains coming through Raleigh, decided to take matters into its own hands. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey got so frustrated that they actually left the old Raleigh Union Station in the late 1930s and would actually board people on their new streamliner passenger trains at that roundhouse,\u201d Paul said. <\/p>\n

In 1941, Seaboard Air Line began construction of Seaboard Station, which many Raleighites now associate with restaurants and local shopping rather than an actual train station. <\/p>\n

\"N.53.15.3971<\/a>

NC State Archives<\/p>

Passengers queue at the Seaboard Air Line Depot, June 20, 1951.<\/p><\/div>\n

The new run-through station opened in 1942 and could accommodate longer passenger trains without backing in or out of the station. <\/p>\n

The Death a Roundhouse and a Station<\/strong>
\n\u201cThe Seaboard was one of the first railroads to transition from steam locomotives to diesel locomotives, and roundhouses weren\u2019t very conducive to doing maintenance on diesels,\u201d Paul said. <\/p>\n

As with all technology, the roundhouse eventually became obsolete. <\/p>\n

The turntable was required to turn the locomotives in the right direction, but new diesel-operated locomotives could operate in either direction. <\/p>\n

\"N.53.15.9706<\/a>

NC State Archives <\/p>

Seaboard Air Lines Roundhouse, 1938<\/p><\/div>\n

In 1954, Seaboard moved all of its maintenance operations in North and South Carolina to a facility it built in Hamlet, N.C. The Hamlet facility is no longer being used as a repair shop, but it still stands today, Paul said. <\/p>\n

After the roundhouse was no longer used for maintenance, it became a storage facility before it was consumed by a fire in the late 1960s. Seaboard Air Line, by then known as Seaboard Coast Line, tore the building down and its remains continue to rest on the property. <\/p>\n

\"NO_H-2<\/a>

News & Observer archives<\/p>

An aerial view of Capital Boulevard construction during the 1950s.<\/p><\/div>\n

Seaboard Station served travelers until 1986, when CSX Transportation abandoned a stretch of rail from Norlina, N.C. to Petersburg, Va. and passengers could no longer head north from Raleigh. <\/p>\n

Until 1986, Seaboard Station was the only station that served daily, long-distance Amtrak trains heading north. Trains then had to be rerouted \u2014 as they are today \u2014 through Selma and Rocky Mount before heading up toward Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n

The station was abandoned, and all passenger trains were sent through the current station on Cabarrus Street, which was built by Southern Railway 1950. <\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

UNC Insurance Maps<\/p>

The turntable is visible on an old Raleigh insurance map. <\/p><\/div>\n

The abandoned station sat vacant until the Logan family purchased the property and did what\u2019s called an adaptive reuse. The station became Logan\u2019s Trading Co., which sits there today. <\/p>\n

Paul said that Logan\u2019s successful reuse sparked the restoration of the old warehouses that are now homes to businesses such as ACE Hardware and Seaboard Wine and Tasting Bar. <\/p>\n

While the roundhouse sits in shambles, the turntable, now owned by CSX, remains intact and is still sometimes used by the railroad and NCDOT. <\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

Karen Tam \/ Raleigh Public Record<\/p>

The old turntable. <\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of two steam-engine-era electric turntables left in North Carolina,\u201d Paul said. The other is located in the North Carolina Transportation Museum. <\/p>\n

He said a third hand-operated table exists and is owned by a private collector in Rocky Mount.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A 100-year-old piece of Raleigh\u2019s rail history remains near the Peace Street and Capital Boulevard bridge. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24029,"featured_media":20803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15],"tags":[1507,1228,1508],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20787"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24029"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}