L&N Depot - Murphy, NC
N 35° 05.171 W 084° 02.204
16S E 770160 N 3886618
The L&N Depot, circa 1887, was the meeting place of the Southern (originally the Carolina Railroad) and the Louisville & Nashville Railroad (originally the Georgia Railroad).
Waymark Code: WM4848
Location: North Carolina, United States
Date Posted: 07/20/2008
Views: 44
From 'The Heritage Chronicles', as found in the Geocache 'Historic Murphy Cache' (GC5C33) -
The L&N Depot, circa 1887, was the meeting place of the Southern (originally the Carolina Railroad) and the Louisville & Nashville Railroad (originally the Georgia Railroad). What remains is the freight area. The grand station was torn down shortly after the Railroad pulled up the tracks in 1987. Both Railroads met at the river and were unable to cross it due to a group of Murphy businessmen and New York investors who chartered a railroad called the Hiawassee Railroad Company and set up a blockade to keep the L&N and Southern Railroads from meeting. Passengers and freight had to be ferried across the river to the depot. No railroad was interested in the Hiawassee scheme or buying its right-of-way, and it eventually died. The Georgia Railroad went to court to condemn the property and finally put its tracks across the river to the present depot site 12 years later. Murphy now boasts the smallest railroad in the country with a short spur of tracks, a boxcar and a caboose. The last train to leave out of Murphy was a trip to Andrews over the July 4 weekend of 1992. There are currently plans to restore the train cars and start running lighter weight trains through the Andrews Murphy Valley once again.
The web site below is for the Valley River Model Railroaders Club which meets in the station.
Is the station/depot currently used for railroad purposes?: No
Is the station/depot open to the public?: Yes
If the station/depot is not being used for railroad purposes, what is it currently used for?:
Meetings
What rail lines does/did the station/depot serve?: The Carolina Railroad, The Georgia Railroad
Station/Depot Web Site: [Web Link]
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