TotalLamer

There's actually 2 spurs in there, you just can't see the nearest one from that angle. I imagine it was probably an old team track, in which case yeah, most likely owned by the railroad.

Here's some good pics if anyone's interested. Article they come from if anyone's interested: http://wvncrails.weebly.com/piedmont--northernyesterday-and-today.html 1917 map: 1931:

Yeah the last industry that was worked down there around Cedar St. was Jones Chemical which I imagine moved out to Chemway sometime during construction of the stadium. After that, the only industry worked on that leg of the P&N (as opposed to the leg that turned down towards Thrift just before State St.) was Carolina Paperboard... and I believe that went out around '07 or so from what I've been told. This place: http://binged.it/1c1SrB3 It's all very sad, really. What once was but never again will be. The amount of work that was once down towards Thrift and Cedar and now... all of it, gone. The switching yard was much further into Uptown, past the Southern. It was taken out sometime in the 70s I believe.

I'm kind of curious why they call it "at Cedar Yard" at all considering Cedar Yard was much further into uptown. But whatevs.

Only the intermodal yard is moving to the airport. The freight yard will remain.

Yeah that's just the spur for the Observer... but if you follow the tracks out of the parking lot you can see they're not continuous all the way to the building anymore anyways, though the crossing is still there. Makes me wonder how many years it's been since the Observer got cars there.

Pinoca is TINY. Yardmasters are always having to shove cars here or there to get them out of the way. Tryon yard would be REALLY helpful to get wheat cars for ADM out of the way. Shove about ~30 or so in there. ADM can get 12 cars a night, assuming they order them in... but they don't always and their cars don't come in evenly either. Some days the train from Hamlet won't bring any, then the next day he'll bring 40.

Chalk this up to more rumor and speculation, but more things "heard around the watercooler" at Pinoca... -Tryon Yard will be put back in-service "soon". -Signals will be installed Charlotte to Monroe during the next jamboree... so sometime summer 2014, roughly.

Just heard that the project to expand the Transflo facility near Chemway has been approved. Currently, the ethanol train that yards there is 80 cars and unloaded by truck to be taken over to tank town. With the expansion, they'll be building 4 more 30-car tracks, while the existing 3 tracks used now for the ethanol train will be returned to Transflo so they can accommodate more customers. In any case, ethanol trains will become 90 cars and they'll be building a pipeline to unload the product and pump it across the P&N to tank town. I believe the idea is that it will take a lot less time to unload so they'll be able to get more trains in per week.

Hopefully they'll do something about the horrid stucco façade.

A figurative ton, not a literal ton.

I was just driving down Kings and they're unloading a TON of rail there at the Trade/Elizabeth intersection.

I've been by that building on trains quite a few times relatively recently and the 1-story, 60s looking addition on the side facing the tracks has been torn down for a few months now, so there's definitely movement at the site.

Latest word around the watercooler is that CSX is looking to build a third Transflo facility in Charlotte... and it's going to end up very near the first one. Apparently they're looking at buying land right around what we call the "Sears Lead" and the "GM Lead", which works out to being right around here: Now obviously these are all still just rumors and there's been PLENTY of those around here that never materialized. As for whether they're just looking at buying the land there or perhaps some of the vacant buildings to demolish as well to make more room I can't say.

I assume La Meridian is the taller, tackier of the two Blake towers? The one that looks like it was built with the cheapest possible fake stucco in existence lathered atop a boring, featureless rectangle of a building? I -really- hope they do something to make that building look less, well... cheap. Really, really, REALLY cheap.

Sad to see yet another old piece of rail-serviced industry go to the wrecking ball but, eh... it is what it is I guess. I imagine that place hasn't seen a car in decades. The same will happen to Cedar before long I imagine... it's all obsolete.

I bet that's the deathknell for the little convenience store down the block beside the bar there.

I know the Midtown one at least actually ended up looking pretty nice for what it is. Haven't seen the South End one yet.

What exactly is going on with all the pipes running along the gutters and across sidewalks and whatnot through NoDa right now?

I'm unsure on this whole "CSX won't allow more than 2 passenger trains a day to cross their tracks" idea simply because the diamond at ADM is Norfolk Southern's. CSX crosses there at the Southern's discretion, not the other way around.

What's the loading dock situation?

File this under "rumor" but if anyone knows about the recently opened Clearwater Paper plant in Shelby, it's serviced by CSX... and I heard at work that they're so happy with their service they want to locate another plant on the Charlotte subdivision somewhere. To be fair, that stretches from Bostic to Monroe so it might not effect Charlotte at all, assuming it even happens.

I'll tell you what building I'd like to see occupied... the old Merita bakery off 85. It used to get rail service back in the day and it'd be nice to have another customer in that direction.

Whatever the case, I hope they manage to do something in the refurb so both towers aren't, y'know... complete and total eyesores like they are now.

Some other interesting news on the Tank Town front, forgot to mention earlier. The Transflo facility at Toddville will be adding either 2 or 4 new tracks, I've heard conflicting stories. But either way, the general idea is to be able to bring in 5 to 6 ethanol trains a month instead of the 2 to 3 that come in currently and a new pipeline will be built to transfer it directly to the facilities there in Tank Town.