Looks like I’m becoming a full-fledged railfan, to my surprise. I enjoy spending my spare moments studying those tracks. I can’t really explain the attraction – it really makes no sense on the surface of it. It’s just fun wondering what it must have been like during the early days of rail.

It was a day spent working in my yard which ignited my current interest. I took a break from digging a trench to climb up the hill near the tracks. On my way up, I spotted the stump of a sawed-off telephone pole. Nearby was a glass insulator, which led me to discover a long length of telegraph wire.

Curiosity got to me. How old was that wire?

I started putting a picture together from the resources on the Internet. These tracks behind our house are the oldest railroad tracks in North Carolina. They belonged to the Raleigh and Gaston Railroad, which was commissioned in 1834 to build a line from Raleigh to Gaston, where other lines led to Petersburg and Norfolk.

Work was slow and sloppy, but progress was eventually made. The first stop northward was a station called Huntsville. Later this stop became known as Neuse Station. Neuse was located right outside my neighborhood. That makes this spot near my neighborhood the second-oldest depot in the state.

The rail line was completed in 1840, the same year as our State Capitol building. It brought prosperity to many surrounding towns. Cary and Apex likely wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for the railroad. Wake Forest boomed when it stole a station from its Forestville neighbor to the south. Little towns like Norlina, Weldon and Hamlet thrived when they became important junctions in the line.

Railroads were prized targets during the Civil War, and the Raleigh and Gaston was no exception. Union troops were ordered to destroy bridges along the line and frequently did. They didn’t need much help, since the railroad had a shoddy maintenance record, from all accounts.

Eventually, the railroad joined with its Virginia cousin to become the Seaboard Air Line. The Seaboard soon stretched all across the south, connecting all the major cities. The famous Orange Blossom Special ran along these tracks from 1925 to 1952. In 1967, it merged with its eastern cousin, the Atlantic Coast Line, to become the Seaboard Coast Line. Three years later, Amtrak was formed, and the writing was on the wall for commercial passenger trains. Thirteen years later, at the height of railroad consolidation, the Seaboard merged with the Chessie system to form CSX. (I’m still trying to find out when the last passenger train traveled those tracks.)

Where the tracks once cut travel to Petersburg to a mere 15 hours, they no longer reach that far. CSX took up the tracks north of Norlina in the mid-80s, using the rest to service the woodchip businesses, quarries, and power plants in the northern part of the state. The typical cargo passing my house is gravel, with occasional tankers and lumber cars.

Those towns like Norlina whose fate were so closely tied to the rails have never recovered from the loss of those passenger trains. Neuse Station never made it. It exists now as the name of the local post office branch. The former depot building, a decrepit two-room shack, still stands on the depot property, its weatherbeaten sign announcing “Neuse” to the garbage trucks parked around it. Seeing it there this weekend made me wonder what might have been, had this little depot hung on.

The Neuse depot might see traffic once again, with the coming of the Triangle Transit Authority’s rail system. It is slated to become a commuter station, though its completion has been pushed back.

In addition to TTA, the Southeast High Speed Rail Corridor will also reactivate the track for passenger use on its Charlotte to Washington route. Though its doubtful the High Speed Rail will be stopping at Neuse, it will be a boon for those little towns like Norlina which depended so much on the rails.

On our trip to buy a dishwasher yesterday, we stopped at the Triangle Towne Center Mall, conveniently located a dozen miles north of the town center. For the second time in two trips to the mall, I had to squeeze my way out of a door which wouldn’t open all the way.

Why on Earth do they paint the parking spaces so dadgum close together? This is SUV country, not Ford Focus country. How about a parking space that you don’t need a shoehorn to use?

Back when I helped Garner rewrite its land use ordinance, I learned about efforts of some municipalities to provide “compact” parking spaces. What a stupid idea! Inevitably someone in an F150 will park there, making it hell for his immediate neighbors.

At least most places using the old zoning had the foresight to label those spaces as compact. The Towne Center mall just paints ’em all that small and doesn’t tell you.

American cars are getting bigger. American butts are getting bigger,too. Its about time someone super-sized parking spaces. Only the Duke boys should have to crawl through windows to get into their cars.

Travis is feeling better now. I got some priceless grins from him yesterday morning after two days of not seeing any. His mood has improved even more today. It looks like his bout with this nastiness won’t last long at all.

We’ve got one of the cheapest, most useless dishwashers in our house. It didn’t even work properly when we closed, but functioned well enough for our home inspector to approve it. Putting a new timer dial on it probably cost more than the thing is worth. Even with that repair, the dishes constantly come out unwashed. Glasses have streaks, and food remains on the silverware and plates.

Today, we finally sealed its fate. A new, quiet, self-emptying Kenmore will be installed on Thursday. Yay!

I’ve been doing so much grumbling lately that I forgot to mention we’re going to Italy in May! Kelly’s family put the trip together and we can’t be more excited. It’s been a while since we’ve taken a vacation outside the borders of our Fatherland, er, Homeland, and Italy sounds like a great place to go next.

We’ll be visiting Siena, which has been called the worlds’ most beautiful city. Oh, and for you crooks out there, our neighbors’ Rottweilers will be holding down the fort while we’re gone.

Ciao!

I felt like I should write something important. So I did (see last sentence). I don’t really feel any better now. Strange.

Travis has had a fever the past day or so and has not been his usual (mostly) smiley self. His temp was 101 yesterday before we got the greenlight for Tylenol. He’s seemed to be in less pain today but looked worn out all day. Right now he’s with Kelly nursing.

I’ve been in a melancholy mood today, for whatever reason. Work was pretty busy this morning, with the phone seemingly ringing off the hook. Fortunately, it was a very understanding customer, if a needy one, and could have been worse. I felt like I had to get a break, so I ate my lunch in my car, sitting in the parking lot.

It may be just post-sickness delirium. I slept on the sofabed last night in an effort to give Kelly and Travis some room to rest, but wound up sleeping poorly. The cat kept crowding me and waking me up. Bah.

I may also be tiring of cube life. There’s this great cartoon I saved from a few years back. It shows two sides of society. The “loser” is locked in a small cell. The “winner” is locked in a small cubicle. The only difference is the uniform.

On the other hand, I formed a goal tonight on the way home. The goal is to put a million bucks into our back account. I figure its a good start, and within the realm of possibility depending on what I do.

Set a goal and work backwards. The rest will take care of itself.

I came across this challenging music quiz yesterday. It comes from Tom Danehy’s Music Grill, Tucson Weekly, Oct. 1996. Some answers are surprising.

Let’s see how good you are!

1. Name the best-selling album of all time which had no hit singles.

2. Name three No. 1 singles whose entire lyrics were in a foreign language. (Title and artist.)

3. What song are they singing about in “Killing Me Softly With His Song”?
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I just took a look at the stats page for MT.Net for the month of December. The site closed out the year with an impressive 48,344 hits for the month. A year prior, the December count was 18,024 hits. That’s a boost of 268%, for those keeping score at home. Pretty impressive.

I don’t have the yearly totals since my stat database got corrupted sometime in late summer, but maybe “One Day I’ll Fix It (TM).”

Listening to Dan Zanes Parades And Panoramas nonstop for the past few days has gotten me thinking ahead to Merlefest. The past two years I’ve talked about going, yet found myself still here. I guess the camping stuff doesn’t appeal to me much. If I only knew someone who has an RV I could borrow…

So what about it, Merlefesters? Do you camp or do the RV thing? How is the camping? Get any sleep?