An additional local freight train will likely be added on the Southern between Blacksburg and Marion this morning, it was learned Saturday. Increase of freight business has necessitated additional facilities for handling the volume and the additional train will be the result.
That the train will be run this morning is not known definitely but it is very probable that it will make its initial trip Tuesday. It will probably be run through the winter and maybe on through 1924. Increase in freight in Shelby has been noticeable for the past few weeks, indicating bigger business in the section covered by the Southern office here. Additional freight is also being carried by the Seaboard. Shelby is, as a matter of fact, becoming more and more an important freight station with railroads. This indicates, more than any one thing, the growth of business in Shelby within the past few years.
There is a possibility that Shelby will be a local freight terminal for the Southern, it has been learned unofficially. It is known that this was discussed during the past summer but action was delayed. However, the matter is not yet a dead issue and belief among some railroad men is that it will possibly be made a terminal within the next year. If this is done local freights will be broken here and crews sent from here to Marion and from here to Rock Hill. If the terminal is placed here it will mean the addition to Shelby of at least a dozen families, as it would become the home of each member of the crew of each freight.
The discussion of the proposed terminal results from working of the eight-hour law. By present arrangements crews of local freights operated by Shelby on the Southern are often paid a considerable sum in overtime wages since the length of the trip is more than can be made within the eight hours by a local freight picking up and discharging freight at each station.
If Shelby becomes a local freight terminal, and indications are that such will be done, it will mean to the town, in that the new families, added to Shelby’s population will be of considerable value, to say nothing of the convenience to Shelby business men with facilities of a terminal open to them.
A railroad story would not be complete without mention of the condition of the railroad crossings on West Warren and West Marion streets and that on North Washington street. Thus it will be of much interest throughout the town and county and especially to those who drive Fords and other cars that the railway companies have been ordered to pave these crossings by October 15 or the town will do the work and assess the cost against the railroad companies.
From the front page of The Cleveland Star, Shelby, N.C., Saturday, Sept. 8, 1923
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