Have you ever seen old photos or illustrations of townspeople who have gathered at their local railway station to cheer on a visiting dignitary or to mourn a dead statesman? Well, it happened in a small North Carolina town recently, and the celebrity was — the train itself.
It wasn't a particularly glamorous train. It was a Norfolk Southern freight train with 59 cars loaded full of cement, paper, plastic pellets, hops and barley malt. But this train was a big milestone for a region still recovering from the fury of Tropical Storm Helene: It was the very first revenue train to complete a route that had been decimated by the storm's flooding.
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The train, designated NS 9900, had departed from the town of Hickory, North Carolina, around 8 a.m. Saturday and made its triumphant arrival at the Asheville rail yard by 2:30 p.m. Along the route, a crowd of rail enthusiasts gathered at the historic train depot in Old Fort to witness this momentous return, some cheering, others simply watching in quiet appreciation as the locomotive rolled past, marking the end of months without rail service.
The celebration was particularly meaningful because the storm had inflicted its worst damage on a challenging 15-mile stretch of track that includes the famous "Old Fort Loops," an impressive feat of 1900s engineering that guides trains up a steep mountain ascent through a series of tunnels as they approach the Blue Ridge Mountains.
These loops were the final section of the Asheville-Salisbury line to be restored after a massive rebuilding effort. Until their repair, the vital connection between North Carolina's mountain industries and the rest of the state had been completely severed, making this humble freight train's journey a symbol of the region's resilience and recovery.
