Steam Doubleheaders

[NW Mailing List]

I was in Roxboro on Thursday, one of the towns on the Durham Line in Person County NC where the Hyco and Mayo power plants are located.  While at my mother’s, I heard a train horn late in the afternoon.  Something I used to hear daily while growing up in Roxboro.  While the tracks aren’t used often south of Mayo, they are still in service.

The end of the line is at the Camp Chemical Fertilizer plant, just south of town.  There is a sign in the middle of the tracks that says END OF THE LINE and the tracks are still on the ground out of town for a few miles. This is just beyond milepost L85.  Camp Chemical ships in and out fertilizer and corn/beans. A couple of hoppers come in about every week or so. There was traffic on Thursday (2/11/21).    

Roxboro and points north used to ship tobacco to Durham and cigarettes used to come out of Durham in the 1950’s and 60’s.  A lot of cigarettes.  Durham was the home of not only Legget and Myers but The American Tobacco Company (the Duke family).  Export Leaf and Tobacco (Brown and Williamson) also had a storage facility as did other tobacco companies.  My dad was a buyer for Export.  Legget claimed to have had 6 miles of storage warehouses to hold incoming tobacco at what is now the site of the COSTCO store and nearby apartments.  There were a lot of warehouses, so many there was a large flock of sheep wondering around on the grounds to keep the grass down.

There was a lot of tobacco.

I don’t remember about double headers but I do know there were at least a couple of freight trains a day hauling box cars, in both directions.

Chuck Stewart
Bahama, NC

> On Feb 13, 2021, at 11:28 AM, NW Mailing List via NW-Mailing-List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> Herb:
> Regarding the Hyco/Mayo traffic -- on the Durham
> District, Lynchburg Tunnel won't clear a Plate C
> hopper, so an mty train returning from the utility
> plants with a Plate C car must turn west onto the
> ex-Virginian and buck the eastbound traffic.  Plans
> were to build a connection from the Old Main Line
> near Posm to the Durham District south of Lynch-
> burg Tunnel, but it never materialized -- too much
> money to provide an over/underpass on U.S. 501.
>                                                  Harry Bundy 
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