Locations and Facilities

Located in the southern part of Moore County, Aberdeen, North Carolina is a small town full of historical character. Settled by Scottish emigrants in the 1700's, the Town was known as Bethesda and Blue's Crossing before it adopted its current name in the later part of the nineteenth century.

Soon after the Civil War, the Raleigh & Augusta Air Line (now owned by the CSX Transportation System) was completed through the county and through the struggling community of Blue's Crossing. In the 1870's the production of turpentine, resin and tar from the pine trees, and the cutting of the pine trees for the timber itself, required better transportation facilities and a unity in government.

Prior to 1900, the economy was shaped for years to come with agriculture, industry, tourism and retirement. During the twentieth century, the Sandhills experienced prosperity, wars, depression and recessions. Agriculture farming brought forth grain, fruit, cotton and tobacco. The resort and retirement industries grew. Today there is a healthy balance among these major segments of the Sandhills economy, and planning for the future will continue to balance and enhance the quality of life in our community.

Town of Aberdeen

The Union Station Railroad Museum in Aberdeen seeks to preserve the Union Station Depot and to preserve and exhibit artifacts and memorabilia collected from the community, the Aberdeen and Rockfish Railroad Company, and other railroad enterprises that passed through Union Station or operated in the surrounding region. Built circa 1900, Union Station features Victorian architecture and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The station was designed by T.B. Creel. The museum features railroad exhibits and artifacts from the Aberdeen & Rockfish Railroad and one of only two inspection cars left in the U.S. A renovated caboose sits on tracks nearby. Located on the corner of Main Street and Sycamore Street.

Town of Aberdeen

Short Line Goes Long

Last spring, ACWR located and acquired an existing building in Candor, just eight miles away from is Star location, and began retrofitting the 91,000-square-foot warehouse facility to turn it into a locomotive repair shop facility, installing 4,600 feet of track leading to the building and a locomotive pit which allows access to the underside of engines for repairs.

Last fall, the company also moved its headquarters there. It maintains refueling and locomotive repair operations at its Star location. The company has also formed a new division to repair and retrofit locomotives as well as passenger and freight cars. "It's common for us to take a locomotive worth $30,000 in scrap and turn it into something worth $300,000," attests Dale Parks, vice president of mechanical and chief mechanical officer. "Dale has been building the locomotive, freight, and passenger railcar repair business for years now," says Menzies. "In fact, Dale and his team have built the business to the point where we had greatly exceeded our capacity in Star to keep up with it. Interest has only increased since we've located to our new facility and we expect this to be a key part of our future business."

Parks says the repair facility is the only one of its kind in the state and one of the few on the East Coast. He firmly believes that he and the team are tasked with saving an important part of Americana by restoring vintage railcars such as the "Roamer."

ACWR's longer term goal in Candor is to develop the rest of the 78-acre rail-served industrial site that will offer manufacturers easy access to rail and bring jobs and a stronger tax base to Montgomery County, says Smitley. The company is marketing a 70-acre business park and multimodal facility dubbed the Midland Multi-Modal Industrial Park in southern Cabarrus County, just seven miles east of Charlotte, with highway access to I-485, rail access to both Norfolk Southern and CSX, and all utilities. The industrial park is a piece of a larger development strategy the company calls RailVantage East (Moore, Montgomery) and RailVantage West (Charlotte, Midland) to develop other available properties as logistics centers along the ACWR short line. Unabashedly, Smitley touts it as "Connecting North Carolina's freight to the rest of the world."

"Connecting NC Freight to the Global Economy" - Greater Charlotte Biz, 2014