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Welllll...... my wife does call me a train geek and she thinks I'm having an affair with the automated ticket agent. She says "Every time you call that Julie on the phone you disappear for a few days on a 'train-trip'"........

Let's go with this one next - For the first hint I will say that this station was built in 1908 and there has never been a time in the last 104 years that scheduled passenger trains have not made their stops here. Some periods have been brighter than others for this station and Amtrak passengers have used three different enclosed waiting areas on the property since 1979. Things are pretty good these days.

salisbury01.jpg
 
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Swadian Hardcore said:
Notelvis said:
Salisbury, NC is correct........ also the destination of Southern Railway train #4 shown at Asheville, NC in my avatar picture.

Your serve Shanghai -
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Could you tell me more about that train? I dont know anything about it.
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Sure. At the risk of getting carried away, here goes - Southern Railway trains #3 and #4 were the early 1970's remnant of Southern's 'Asheville Special' trains #15 and #16. In the picture here train #4 is approaching the Asheville passenger station from the yard. It's probably right about 9:00am as the train is scheduled to depart at 9:15am and is carded for 4 hours to make the 139 mile run to Salisbury.

The 'Asheville Special' ran from Greensboro to Asheville via Winston-Salem and Barber Junction carrying a through sleeper to/from New York. The New York sleeper was handled by the 'Crescent' northbound and by a secondary train called the 'Peach Queen' southbound.

In that dismal period from the mid-1960's up until Amtrak day Southern was ruthless in their efforts to eliminate as many passenger trains as they could and to minimize operating costs as much as possible with those that remained.

By late 1969 the Asheville train had it's eastern terminus shifted from Greensboro to Salisbury which shortened the length of it's trip by about 45-50 miles in each direction. It also lost the New York sleeper. Also during this period Southern 'simplified' the numbers assigned to it's handful of remaining passenger trains. The 'Crescent' and the 'Southerner' formerly trains 37/38 and 47/48 became the 'Southern Crescent' #1 and #2. The Asheville train became #3 and #4..... numbers which became available when the last remnant of the 'Royal Palm', a Cincinnati-Somerset, KY stub was discontinued. The secondary Washington-Atlanta train was named the 'Piedmont' in both directions becoming #5 and #6. The final passenger train which Southern operated into the Amtrak era was a single coach Washington-Lynchburg remnant of the 'Birmingham Special'. This train became #7 and #8.

Of course all of these except for the 'Crescent' were discontinued one-by-one in 1975 and 1976.

So....trains #3 and #4 operated tri-weekly (Sun, Tue, Fri) connecting for points north with #5 and #6 at Salisbury. By Amtrak day #5 and #6 were also on a day schedule so a sleeper wasn't really neccessary. Typical consist was a single FP-7 (usually either #6133, #6141, or #6147), a combine baggage/coach, a coach, and a dome coach which Southern acquired thirdhand from the N&W..... it was originally owned by the Wabash. Always thrifty with their resources, Southern would sometimes use those FP-7's for power on a local freight from Asheville to the Champion Papers mill in nearby Canton, NC on the days the passenger train was not running. I can recall seeing them switching the yard in Canton in early 1975 long after the freight service F-7's were gone.

In June 1975 the 'Piedmont' was discontinued south of Charlotte and rescheduled to break the connection with #3 and #4 in Salisbury. Ridership fell on the Asheville train to the point that it normally operated with just the combine and the dome after that. Of course #3 and #4 were already up for discontinuance by this time and they made their final runs on August 9, 1975.

I'll add that I am partial to trains #3 and #4. They were the first 'real' passenger train I ever rode. They are where I first had the chance to ride in a dome coach. Essentially, I am not old enough to have experienced the last years of privately operated passenger trains in the late 1960's BUT because Southern initially did not join Amtrak, I was able to ride their trains 3/4, 5/6, and 1/2 in the 1970's. This gives me a point of reference when talking to rail enthusiasts a little older than I am who did have the chance to ride pre-Amtrak passenger trains.

And as a final note - a reporter for the Asheville newspaper covering the discontinuance of trains #3 and #4 wrote a story of riding the last #4 from Asheville 30 miles to Old Fort, NC. Most of the assembled media got off the train there causing a local bystander to ask "What's going on? Is the Governor on that train?" The reporter claims to have answered "A passenger train just stopped in Old Fort. From now on that's going to be bigger news than the Governor."
 
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Houston is correct, jimhudson! It amazes me that such a large city has a rather "dull" train station.

So the floor is open to whomever would like to post a picture.
 
Those rails look pretty ratty....... that suggests CN somewhere south of Carbondale. It isn't one of the two Tennessee stations so I'll go a little further south and say Greenwood, MS.
 

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