Hamlet North Carolina

The Seaboard Air Line Railroad Station

It was raining the morning I pulled into Hamlet North Carolina on Amtrak’s Silver Star. We were running a “bit” late, as is common for Amtrak on the tracks of many freight lines, but not terribly late. As the train pulled up it stopped right by the depot to let a sleeping car passenger off. Therefore, I found myself in a fairly decent location to take this shot.

Hamlet North Carolina was a town of the post-Civil War south. It developed the obligatory cotton mills and a few lumber yards. More importantly, it became a “railroad town.” In this case, the railroad that brought life to the gathering of buildings that became Hamlet NC was the Seaboard Air Line Railroad. From an initial beginning of one crossing, the Seaboard soon expanded to the point where 5 different lines left Hamlet for Richmond VA, Wilmington NC, Atlanta GA/Birmingham AL, Charleston SC/Savannah GA, and Columbia SC. In its prime, Hamlet had 30 passenger trains a day leaving.

The town, itself, was incorporated in 1897. About the same time, this depot was constructed. It was designed in the “Queen Anne” version of Victorian Architecture, a popular choice for many railroad stations built during this period. It’s most prominent feature is a rounded corner tower, with a roof to match. The feature, often called a “Witch’s Hat,” was designed to give train employees and passengers better visibility of the various approaching tracks. This was an important feature in those pre-radio days, when often the only warning anyone had of an approaching train was the blowing of the whistle upon the train’s close approach.

Today, the station is served by 1 train a day each way, Amtrak’s Silver Star. Further, most days this train comes through during the darkness of the North Carolina night and thus the station is unseen by most of the passengers. The station also has a second use. It is the home for a railroad museum located in Hamlet.

Gordonsville Virginia

The Louisa Railroad (later the Virginia Central Railroad) Station

When a group of farmers and other interested business persons began building a railroad in Louisa County Virginia, they did so because they realized that it was impractical for them to depend on using the far-distant James River and Kanwha Canal system despite what the Virginia Legislature of that time was advocating. No, they knew that if they were going to have a way to ship goods to market, they would have to rely on that new-fangled technology called a “railroad.” And thus they started the Louisa Railroad, later re-named the Virginia Central. By 1841 they had built westward to the town of Gordonsville Virginia. There they constructed this building to serve as a passenger and a freight station (it is possible that the passenger portion of this station was torn down many years ago and only the freight portion of the structure survives). Over the next 15 years, and particularly during the Civil War, the structure was to see several important trains arrive and depart.

In the spring of 1862, the troops under the command of Robert E. Lee managed to force the Union troops under the command of George C. McClelland away from the gates of Richmond in a series of engagements now known as the Seven Days Campaign. In the subsequent re-alignment of troops, Lee sent his chief Lieutenant, Stonewall Jackson with a group of men and equipment, west on the Virginia Central railroad. Their destination, was this building, the Virginia Central station in Gordonsville.

Here they detrained and tarried a while until Jackson saw the Bluecoats gathering up north and went off to “whip ‘em” once more at the Second Battle of Manassas.

A year later and Stonewall was dead. Lee and his forces had moved north into Pennsylvania, and in a ferocious contest had been turned away at a place called Gettysburg. As a result of Lee’s tactics, another of his “Lieutenants,” James Longstreet, decided he had had enough of Bobby Lee, and implored the War Department, and President Davis, to send him and his troops anywhere but with the Army of Northern Virginia.

The Civilian Government gave in to his entreaties and ordered Longstreet and his Corps, to be transferred to the troops under Braxton Bragg which were gathering to counter the Union threat coming down upon Chattanooga TN. They were to make their transfer by “the cars.” The most direct route, via the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad through Bristol and Knoxville, was not a viable option due to the presence of Union troops, and Union sympathizers in East Tennessee. Accordingly, Longstreet and his Corps, troops and equipment, boarded the Virginia Central at the Gordonsville station and went east and then south over several roads, before finally turning west and again north at Atlanta. But they got to Bragg just in time for him to use them with devastating results at the Battle of Chickamauga.

Throughout the conflict, various Union Commanders recognized the importance of the Virginia Central to the Confederacy. Without the Virginia Central, foodstuffs from the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia had only the vagaries of the James River and Kanawha Canal as a way of traveling to Richmond. Thus, much of the Virginia Central’s line, and many of the stations and other railroad-related structures, was destroyed, often more than once. Somehow, however, this building survived.

After the conclusion of the Civil War, the Virginia Central became the basis for Collis P. Huntington’s Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad. Eventually, this station was replaced with another one further on down the track built to serve both those trains heading to East-West to Richmond and Charlottesville, and North to Washington DC. And the 1841 station was demoted and used for strictly freight. Eventually, the “new” station was demolished, but the 1841 building soldiered on.

A few years ago, it was purchased by a local preservation group and at the time this picture was taken they appeared to be working on stabilizing the building. Initially they had to move the station back from the active tracks, there is also the possibility that it may be moved yet again.