THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 3, 1996 TAG: 9610030359
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: 41 lines
The North Carolina Department of Transportation wants to know how much public inconvenience would be caused if seven miles of railroad track between Elizabeth City and Weeksville are abandoned.
The spur, owned by Norfolk Southern Corp., is occasionally used by the local Chesapeake and Albemarle railroad, a short line that is moving hundreds of tons of freshly harvested grain to ships in Norfolk.
The track to Weeksville was built during World War II when the Navy operated a blimp base near the current U.S. Coast Guard Air Station. The blimps sought German submarines preying on Allied shipping off the Atlantic Coast, and supplies for the blimps rattled down the railroad to Weeksville behind snorting steam engines.
Patrick B. Simmons, director of the Transportation Department's Rail Division, notified legislators and Northeastern business leaders this week of plans by Norfolk Southern to abandon the spur. The tracks to the former blimp base join with the Chesapeake and Albemarle ``main line'' in Elizabeth City.
In the railroad boom during and after World War II, the Norfolk and Southern ran several fast daily passenger and frieght trains through Edenton and across Albemarle Sound to Chocowinity, then a major switching center for southern railroads across the Pamlico River from Washington, N.C.
But when the Norfolk and Southern tore down the Albemarle Sound railroad bridge a few years ago, Edenton became the end of a short line to Norfolk.
Meanwhile, the last remaining blimp hangar in Weeksville is used by TCOM L P, a Maryland company that manufactures aerostats. The tethered blimps are used by several nations for long-range radar surveillance and against drug smugglers.
``We ship our aerostats in standard containers for truck loading,'' said a TCOM engineer on Wednesday. ``I know of no plans to ship anything by rail.''
Pasquotank County Manager Randy Keaton isn't expecting much opposition to the plan to abandon the Weeksville tracks. But Keaton was one of a dozen Northeastern leaders who were asked last week by Simmons, the Transportation Department's railroad official, if their community could get along without the spur to the old blimp base. by CNB