Anyone know anything about a rr turnaround in Abbotsburg nc ABT l885? There was supposed to be a hotel there and also a school. Abbotsburg is between bladenboro & clarkton nc on hwy. 211. Do you think I could get help on this at the museum in Hamlet,nc? All of these questions will help me find out more abbout ggfr james thomas elmore who was with the Seaboard and met my ggmtr(school teacher) in Abbotsbburg. Thanks to all who posted on my question about the job of captain on the rr. I think conductor is the key for me.

-- walter r. elmore (walter@e-machines.net), March 12, 2001

Answers

"Turn" or "Turnaround" indicates a local freight, assigned out of a terminal with limits to a specific point on the railroad. This was important because, railroad pay being determined by mileage, when you went outside those limits you received additional pay. From the two correspondences from Mr. Elmore, I would guess that "Captain Elmore", his great grandfather, was probably a SAL brakeman/conductor on the old North Carolina seniority district based out of Hamlet. The Abbotsburg turn is probably an assignment that worked to that town, or may have been a road switcher assigned at an outlying point [Abbotsburg]. What puzzles me is the move to Henderson, a point on the old Virginia seniority district. Unless he was furloughed or terminated on one or the other district, he would not have been able to freely move from one to the other unless he changed craft. That's just my guess though.

-- Doug Riddell (railroaddoug@erols.com), March 16, 2001.

Can you please explain what a "rr turnaround" is?

All through the 1870's and 1880's the line through Abbotsburg, NC, was on the mainline of the Carolina Central RR from Wilmington to Charlotte and Shelby, NC. The CCRR had come under control of the SAL system by the late 1880's, but still had its own rolling stock. That there was a hotel in Abbotsburg was not unusual in that era. Certainly much smaller places had a hotel, much used by travelling salesman before the auto came along. I doubt there would have been a crew change there as the timetables show trains from Wilmington making the run to Abbotsburg in two and a half hours on their way to Charlotte. An interesting item, found while looking this up, was the population of Abbotsburg dropped from over 1,000 in 1875 to only 175 in 1881. What caused this? Is this the "turnaround" you're alluding to?

-- Tom Underwood (tlunder@attglobal.net), March 12, 2001.