For the last several months I’ve been getting lots of photos of the black horse making its way along the Norfolk Southern mainline. It was time for a change of power, so my dad and I made our way to Monroe, North Carolina to check out the historic Seaboard Air Line Railway depot in the heart of downtown. The Carolina Central Railway in 1874 serving as a connection between Wilmington and Charlotte. A little over a decade later the Georgia, Carolina and Northern Railway was constructed and Monroe became a key hub connecting the north-south route along the east coast. At the turn of the century in 1901, these railways merged into Carolina Central Railway (SAL). SAL serviced the southeast through Virginia, The Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida. As the story of many railroad stations and depots with the popularity of air travel, the decline of rail travel happened. Today the station is still used by the railroad it serves as an office for CSX.
Today you will not see any passenger service at the Monroe junction of the CSX Monroe and Charlotte Subdivisions. We spent a good part of a Monday at the station and getting a birds-eye view of the yard and the station from the Skyway Drive overpass. We were able to catch a local making yard moves and a few trains traveling to Charlotte and points east.
Station Built: 1906
Current Railroad: CSX
Railroad Line: Monroe Subdivision/ Junction with Charlotte Subdivision
Milepost: SG 306.2 (Monroe Subdivision)
