Does anyone know of anyone know of any abandoned train tracks in the Charlotte area of NC?

Question

They make for great photos, sets for short films, things of that nature. So I'd love to know where a few are, because i just moved here recently and I'm not too familiar yet.

Answer 1

Alco 83 was correct to send you to abandonedrailroads.com,  I've have contributed to that site with information about abandoned railroads in this area.  Charlotte which is in Mecklenburg County does not offer much in the way of abandoned railroads as developement usually takes away any trace of them pretty quickly, besides most of the trackage in the area is still in use with a few exceptions.  In the area west of I-77  in the uptown area there are some recently removed tracks that go back to the Piedmont and Northern electric railroad,  the neighborhoods over there are war zones however.  In the area around tank town on Thrift road there is an abandoned P&N depot but the tracks are still active. The Aberdeen and Carolina Western operates a line from the Norfolk Southern yards near uptown Charlotte towards the north east.  This line does not appear to be  getting much use these days.  The track is still old style 20 foot rails and I thought I'd heard has a 10mph speed limit.

In neighboring Gaston County, there are miles of out of service track that is old P&N trackage.  It's still in place.  There is also a steel deck trestle over the South Fork river that's part of it as well as a couple of depots and a power station. One of the depots was a railroad museum and although closed there is still a caboose, diesel and diner on the tracks nearby.  The roadbed of the old Carolina and Northwestern also runs north and south through the town of Gastonia.

In Iredell county between Mooresville and Statesville there is an old Southern line that is partially abandoned.  The tracks are pulled up but south of Statesville some of the rail is still in place althought in bad condition  and there may be a large wooden trestle but I've only seen it on aerial maps.  Statesville also has a good size depot that is now used as some sort of Chamber of Commerce or something similar.  

About 40 miles up I-85 is the North Carolina Transportation Museum.  Part of Leatherheads and a couple of other movies have been filmed here.  It's pretty cool, they have a depot, roundhouse with turn table, several engines both diesel and steam as well as lots of rolling stock such as freight cars, cabooses and coaches.  This was a huge locomotive servicing facility at one time and it's worth the trip.  They also have a collection of old cars too.  

I have a few pictures of some of this on my Flickr account if you want to check them out.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22021033@N0...

Good luck and hope this helps.

Answer 2

I'm not sure about right around Charlotte but the website below lists some abandoned lines in North Carolina.