The Western North Carolina Railroad started constructing a new 76-mile railroad line in the mid-1800s running west from Salisbury to Morganton, NC. Today this line is known as the Eastern portion of the Norfolk Southern S-Line.

The Western North Carolina Railroad started constructing a new 76-mile railroad line in the mid-1800s running west from Sailsbury to Morganton, NC. Today this line is known as the Eastern portion of the Norfolk Southern S-Line. Some years later the line was extended out to Old Fort and eventually extended to Asheville, NC. In 1894 WNCR became apart of the Southern Railway System.

Long haul Norfolk Southern trains stopped operation on the eastern portion of the S-Line when the Linwood Yard was shut down in May 2020 due to the decrease in traffic-related to COVID-19. Norfolk Southern runs some local trains serving business on this portion of the line.

This line hasn’t seen passenger service since the mid-1970s but NCDOT would like to bring rail passenger service back to the eastern portion of the line running between Salisbury and Asheville, NC.

Many of the towns along this route have train depots located in the downtowns. I was able to explore the line and photographed some of these passenger depots. Many of the depots have been repurposed and they are in excellent shape.