New Hope Valley Railway: From Timber Line to Heritage Run

In nineteen oh four, a group of investors led by William Roscoe Bonsal built a short railroad through the valley of the New Hope Creek in Wake County, North Carolina, specifically to haul timber out of the river basin. The New Hope Valley Railroad was sold and merged within a year and eventually became part of the Durham and South Carolina Railroad. The timber played out, and the line faded.

In nineteen eighty-two, a section of the old right-of-way was sold to a chapter of the National Railway Historical Society, and a group of volunteers began rebuilding it as a heritage railroad. Public excursion trains began running in nineteen eighty-four. Today the North Carolina Railway Museum operates four miles of track between Bonsal and New Hill, running diesel and steam-powered excursions on the same corridor where timber trains ran a century ago.

In the nineteen seventies the Army Corps of Engineers dammed New Hope Creek to form Jordan Lake and rebuilt the line on a new alignment. The roster includes an eighty ton General Electric switcher built in nineteen fifty-three, and volunteers are restoring a steam locomotive built by Vulcan Iron Works in nineteen twenty-seven. Trains run monthly from March through December, with special Halloween and Christmas trains.

It is an all-volunteer operation and one of the Triangle region's more unusual living-history attractions.