masthead_shortlines
Featured Shortline

Aberdeen & Rockfish Railroad Company

"The Road of Personal Service"

acwr_state These days the Aberdeen & Rockfish Railroad Company operates a series of shortline railroads in central North Carolina and South Carolina, including the Pee Dee River Railway and the Dunn-Erwin Railway. But the orginial Aberdeen & Rockfish was the Aberdeen to Fayetteville route, 47 miles of shortline operation with interchange connections with the Seaboard, the Atlantic Coast Line, and the original Norfolk Southern. Incorporated in 1892, the road operated local passenger service as late as 1951. Today the road hauls chemicals, coal, lumber, and paper, but operations on the original Aberdeen-Fayetteville line are largely limited to switching operations in a Fayetteville industrial park. Trips between the road's namesake towns are much less common.

The Aberdeen & Rockfish has always been a classic southern shortline, sporting many instersting types of motive power over the years. The road was one of the first southern short roads to dieselize in the transition era, choosing as their first steam replacements some EMD cab units. A GP7 would come to the line in 1951 as #205 -- a notable unit in that it is one of only a few non-rebuilt Geep in shortline service still owned and operated by its purchasing railroad. Offices are maintained in Fayetteville and in an historic building in downtown Aberdeen. A steam-era locomotive service house is still maintained in Aberdeen. Interchange is with CSX Transportation in Abderdeen and with CSX and Norfolk Southern in Fayetteville.

1988 Official Guide listing

ar_inset1 In the south central part of North Carolina, the Aberdeen & Rockfish railroad has done something remarkable for over 100 years: It's trains have been fighting an uphill battle with the undulating profiles of the Sandhills country and winning freight traffic and profitability in the process. That alone is just cause for a Centennial Celebration for a 45-mile line that started as a logging road in the late 1800s, then recast itself into a mini-bridge route carrier and today serves as the healthy parent of a second profitable shortline. But what makes the A&R even more noteworthy is the kind of endearing features which inspired legendary rail author Lucius Beebe to devote five pages to the A&R in his classic 1947 short line tribute "Mixed Train Daily".

AR company website

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Official Guide ad / collection

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AR system map / web

HawkinsRails thanks railfan friends Ben Wells and Warren Calloway for use of their AR photographs

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Motive Power

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1992 AR diesel roster / collection

Aberdeen & Rockfish #205

  • builder:Electro Motive Division
  • model:GP7
  • type:B-B road switcher
  • built:Oct 1951, EMD #14572
  • series:210 produced 1949-54
  • engine:EMD 567B (16 cyls. 1500 hp)
  • notes:
  • blt Aberdeen & Rockfish #205
  • a rare shortline Geep still on the roster of its orginial owner and still operating with original (not rebuilt) prime mover
  • builder

    Aberdeen & Rockfish #300

  • builder:Electro Motive Division
  • model:GP18
  • type:B-B road switcher
  • built:Aug 1963, EMD #28357
  • series:350 produced 1959-63
  • engine:EMD 567D1 (16 cyl. 1800 hp)
  • notes:
  • blt Aberdeen & Rockfish #300
  • AR traded in F3A #200 to EMD for #300
  • builder
    ar300g1 ar300g2 ar300g3 ar300g4

    Fayetteville, NC / Apr 2019 / RWH

    Aberdeen & Rockfish #400

  • builder:Electro Motive Division
  • model:GP38
  • type:B-B road switcher
  • built:Jun 1968, EMD #34029
  • series:466 produced 1966-71
  • engine:EMD 645E (16 cyl. 2000 hp)
  • notes:
  • blt Aberdeen & Rockfish #400
  • builder

    Aberdeen & Rockfish #405

  • builder:Electro Motive Division
  • model:GP38
  • type:B-B road switcher
  • built:Jan 1967, EMD #31949
  • series:466 produced 1966-71
  • engine:EMD 645E (16 cyl. 2000 hp)
  • notes:
  • ex Edgmoor & Manetta #7200
    to Erie Mining #4215
    to LTV Steel Company #4215
    to Northern Illinois & Wisconsin #405
    to Aberdeen & Rockfish #405
  • builder

    Aberdeen & Rockfish #2486

  • builder:Electro Motive Division
  • rebuilder:Santa Fe Cleburne Shops
  • model:CF7
  • type:B-B road switcher
  • rebuilt:Jan 1975
  • series:233 produced 1970-78
  • engine:EMD 567B (16 cyls. 1500hp)
  • notes:
  • rebuilt from ATSF F7A #259C (1951)
  • Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe #2486
    to Blue Mountain & Reading #2486
    to Pee Dee River #2486
    to Aberdeen & Rockfish #2486 builder
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    1992 AR steam locomotive roster / collection

    Rolling Stock

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    Aberdeen, NC / Apr 2019 / RWH

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    Fayetteville, NC / Apr 2019 / RWH

    Locations

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    ar_logo1 It all started in 1892 with the construction of the railroad. But the origins of the line can be traced back almost another 100 years before that, to the arrival of the Blue family, immigrants from Scotland. Settling near the present-day location of the town of Aberdeen, they acquired Moore County NC farmlands and tracts of longleaf pine trees that grew as tall as 120 feet. Such timber stands were well suited to turpentine collecting operations and logging. Following the Civil War, the future of the turpentine business in south-central North Carolina was assured with the construction in the 1870s of the Raleigh & Augusta Air Line railroad (a predecessor of the Seaboard Air Line), which would bring better transportation to the region.

    One of the first sidings on the A&R in the area was called "Blue's" and it soon became a loading area for naval stores, an important product for a state with dense pine forests. The name of the siding was later changed to “Blue's Crossing”, after Malcolm Blue, the largest landowner in the area. In the late 1880's, Malcolm Blue's nephew, Civil War Veteran John Blue, moved from nearby Cumberland County to Blue's Crossing, which was renamed Aberdeen (after the Scottish seaport) in 1887. This was about ten years after the Raleigh & Augusta had completed its line from Raleigh to Hamlet, where a connection was made with the Carolina Central, an east-west line between the coastal port at Wilmington and the inland trading city of Charlotte.

    In 1902, John Blue organized the Aberdeen & Rockfish Railroad Company. Chartered on June 22, it was authorized to run eastward from Aberdeen into the pine forests of the Sandhills region, a sandy area with hiJohn Blue-smgh ridges covering about 1100 square miles in five North Carolina counties. The line's route was projected to pass through the rolling hills into Blue's native Cumberland County. The terminus given on the charter was to be along "the Rockfish Creek," hence the name.

    Aberdeen & Rockfish Railroad

    tag_pinAberdeen

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    Click to see the Aberdeen & Rockfish office area plotted on a Google Maps page

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    Click to see the Aberdeen & Rockfish locomotive shop area plotted on a Google Maps page

    tag_pinFayetteville

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    The A&R Railroads take great pride in providing customers with prompt and efficient service for the shipment of virtually any type of commodity from raw materials to finished products. Comprising the Aberdeen & Rockfish Railroad and the Pee Dee River Railway, our system has over 125 years of experience in providing personal service to Carolina customers. Together with our transportation partners CSX Transportation, Norfolk Southern, Tidewater Transit, Sterling Transport and Mid-Atlantic Transloading & Logistics, the A&R Railroads have access to some of the most cost effective routes and rates serving all of North America.

    The A&R Railroads provide value-added services to move shipments fast and efficiently including route planning, negotiating through rates from origin to destination, finding and furnishing acceptable equipment, scheduling movements and tracking shipments. We assure consistently high levels of service through our dedicated and professional employees, some of who are third generation A&R. Helping customers gain advantage over their competition through lower logistics costs is our goal.

    Aberdeen & Rockfish Company

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    Click to see the Fayetteville industrial park plotted on a Google Maps page

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    Click to see the Aberdeen & Rockfish Fayetteville office area plotted on a Google Maps page

    tag_lagnLagniappe

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    ar_logo3 The A&R of today doesn't pick up carloads of ripening watermelons, and its employees no longer carry fishing poles to work -- or at least as far as the general office in Aberdeen knows. The brimstone hot cabs of the steam locomotives like No. 40 have been replaced with diesels, although they can still swelter in July and August.

    Today, the railroad continues to do its work virtually unnoticed just as it has for 100 years. Five days a week, the train runs between Aberdeen and Fayetteville. But it's more than just running trains. Because the A&R totes chemicals to make hair spray in Raeford, people in Hoke County have jobs. Thanks to the A&R's timely delivery in Fayetteville of boxcars filled with tons of newsprint, each Sunday morning more than 82,000 subscribers can look forward to their copy of the "The Fayetteville Observer-Times." Cumberland County residents who recycle metals should know the journey to the recycling plant often begins in A&R gondolas loaded in Fayetteville. The examples go on and on as the railroad moves freight efficiently and economically serving the industry and communities of the Sandhills.

    And just as in the days when No. 40 ruled the rails, today's diesel locomotives are emblazoned with the words that the driving force behing the company's success. The Aberdeen & Rockfish is "The Road of Personal Service."

    The Road of Personal Service: A Centennial History, 1992

    AR system map

    AR route map / web

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    Aberdeen, NC, is well attested as a railfan paradise. Two independent shortlines -- one of them the classic A&R -- interchange with the CSX on a longstanding mainline stretch leaving Hamlet, to the south. As such, there is plenty of action to see ... such as the day my dad and I found the AC&W working the CSX interchange. Anyone who follows southern shortline action knows of the Aberdeen & Rockfish, with its history of EMD covered wagons and its classic little offices in Aberdeen, just off the CSX mainline. I hope to return to the line one day to photograph more of its equipment. Until then, I'm grateful to Ben Wells and Warren Calloway for the use of their AR photography.

    Links / Sources

    This page was updated on 2019-12-22