September 2009, Volume 39 No. 1, Page 5
Other Railroad Items
Amtrak comes to Asheville
A day trip to Asheville on Amtrak's Blue Ridge Special will be offered Nov. 1, starting in and returning to Spencer. The N.C. Transportation Museum Foundation and the Watauga Valley Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society are sponsoring the excursion as one of two fall foliage train rides, Oct. 31-Nov. 1.A Charlottesville, Va. day trip from Spencer was revived in 2007 and has sold out both years. The Virginia Autumn Special departs at 7 a.m. Oct. 31 and stops to pick up passengers at the Greensboro Amtrak Station at 8 a.m. It passes through Thomasville, High Point and Reidsville before heading into the western part of central Virginia, arriving at Charlottesville at noon. The train leaves at 3 p.m., hitting Greensboro at 6:45 p.m. and Spencer at 8 p.m.
The Blue Ridge Special leaves Spencer at 7 a.m. Nov. 1 and travels through Statesville, Hickory, Morganton, Marion, Black Mountain and Swannanoa before reaching Biltmore Village at noon. The return trip begins at 3 p.m., arriving in Spencer at 8 p.m.
Tickets are $140 for coach, $170 for deluxe coach (including lunch and snacks) and $240 for premium first class, which includes breakfast and dinner. A $14 box lunch will be available. Tickets are available at www.nctrans.org or by calling 704-636-2889, ext. 232.
Samuel Spencer Statue Finds New Home in Atlanta
A 99-year-old bronze statue of Samuel Spencer, first president of Norfolk Southern predecessor Southern Railway, has been relocated from an Atlanta city park and placed in front of the David R.
Goode Building.Some 30,000 employees voluntarily contributed funds for a memorial to Spencer following his tragic death in a rear-end train collision in Virginia in 1906. Daniel Chester French, a notable American sculptor who created the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., was commissioned to create the statue. It was unveiled in May 1910 on the plaza at Atlanta’s Terminal Station and ceremoniously presented to the state of Georgia and the city of Atlanta. It remained there for 60 years, until it was moved to Southern’s Peachtree Station in July 1970. In 1996, as part of preparations for the Summer Olympics, the statue was relocated to Hardy Ivy Park downtown. Movement to its present midtown setting was arranged by agreement with the city of Atlanta and Norfolk Southern.
Over his career, Spencer served as president of six railroads. But his first railroad job came in 1869 as a surveying crew rod man for the Savannah & Western, a Central of Georgia predecessor. He became the first president of Southern Railway in 1894. During his 12-year tenure, the railway’s mileage doubled, its annual passengers quadrupled to 12 million, and its earnings increased from $17 million to $54 million.
Pictures from the Lake Junaluska Model Project
Models by Jack Mershon
