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| Belmont NC to get a trolley next year? (1304341) | |
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| (1304341) | |
Belmont NC to get a trolley next year? |
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Posted by Jon Bell on Sun Jul 27 16:38:50 2014 It looks like the inactive Belmont branch of the former Piedmont & Northern electric interurban may see passenger service next year, for the first time since 1932. The state will build a bike/hike trail alongside the track from downtown Belmont to Belmont Abbey College on the north side of town, and restore the track enough that Charlotte Trolley's former car #1, a single-truck car from Athens, Greece, can operate on it. There's no mention of overhead wire which would be a major expense, so I expect the car will tow a generator, like the Charlotte Trolley did in its early years.A new nonprofit group will probably be formed to take ownership of the car and operate it. Trolley Coming to Belmont (Gaston Gazette) Belmont Rail Trail Project (City of Belmont; includes map) In order to reach the college, the trail has to cross Interstate 85. There is a single-track rail bridge that doesn't look wide enough to carry the track and the trail side-by-side. There does appear to be a shoulder on the adjacent road bridge that carries NC 7 over I-85, so maybe they'll simply shift the trail over to the road bridge. A couple of years ago I posted a few pictures of the ROW and the former P&N station in downtown Belmont:  By chance, I drove across these tracks yesterday on my way home from Charlotte via US 29&74, whose intersection is in the far background of the picture above. But I found out about this project only this afternoon while reading the latest Railpace magazine.    This is going to take a lot of cleanup work! |
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Re: Belmont NC to get a trolley next year? |
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Posted by Jon Bell on Sun Jul 27 17:20:50 2014, in response to Belmont NC to get a trolley next year?, posted by Jon Bell on Sun Jul 27 16:38:50 2014. Hmmm... parsing those articles more closely indicates that the earliest this thing could start running is probably year after next (2016). Trail construction doesn't start until next year, and things like this do tend to drag out. |
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| (1304404) | |
Re: Belmont NC to get a trolley next year? |
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Posted by 3-9 on Mon Jul 28 00:42:52 2014, in response to Belmont NC to get a trolley next year?, posted by Jon Bell on Sun Jul 27 16:38:50 2014. Wow. When was the last time something went to Belmont? Also, is the P&N museum still there? According to Wikipedia the lease ran out and wasn't extended. |
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Re: Belmont NC to get a trolley next year? |
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Posted by Jon Bell on Mon Jul 28 11:38:12 2014, in response to Re: Belmont NC to get a trolley next year?, posted by 3-9 on Mon Jul 28 00:42:52 2014. I've been trying to find out when freight service ended on that branch, but so far no luck. It was built specifically to serve a textile mill near downtown Belmont. One mill is in fact still active. You can see it easily on Google Earth or Google Maps, northeast of downtown. No sign of a freight spur now, but there is a fairly recent-looking addition on the end of the building facing the tracks, with a concrete driveway for trucks. I suspect they were the last freight customer.The ex P&N station is empty now. When I took those pictures a couple of years ago, there were signs indicating that a flower shop had been in there recently. I posted a few more pics two years ago. According to the Fetters & Swanson book about the P&N, passenger service (1916-1932) used city-type cars which connected to the Charlotte-Gastonia trains at Mt. Holly. |
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| (1304607) | |
Re: Belmont NC to get a trolley next year? |
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Posted by 3-9 on Tue Jul 29 00:07:49 2014, in response to Re: Belmont NC to get a trolley next year?, posted by Jon Bell on Mon Jul 28 11:38:12 2014. Thanks for the info! That also answers another question I had - what were the cars and locomotive doing there? :-) Also, I noticed there is a switch east of the Belmont station - did that originally go to the other mill? |
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