For the first time since Helene, a train passes through NC’s Old Fort Loops
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- A Norfolk Southern freight train was the first into Old Fort since Hurricane Helene.
- Contractors rebuilt 15 miles of the AS Line using 140,000 tons of stone.
- Restoration allows freight trains to serve customers along the Asheville–Hickory line.
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Silenced NC railroad restored
The remnants of Hurricane Helene demolished tracks belonging to three railroads in Western North Carolina in 2024. Soon, trains will travel again on the last 15 miles of track to be restored. This is the story of how the Norfolk Southern railroad line known as the Old Fort Loops was built 145 years ago and is now rebuilt after the destructive storm.
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It’s been a long time since a crowd of people gathered at the center of this small town at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains to watch a train pass by. But this was no ordinary train.
The Norfolk Southern freight train that rumbled into Old Fort on Saturday morning was the first since Hurricane Helene ravaged Western North Carolina more than a year and a half ago. More than 200 residents and rail fans from around the region came to see the 59-car train hauling a hodge-podge of goods, including rolls of paper, cement, plastic pellets and hops and barley malt bound for Asheville breweries.
Lamar Hicks and his 12-year-old son Parker came out to cheer the return of trains that pass near their house in Old Fort.
“Trains are just part of our culture,” said Hicks, an Old Fort native who works as a nurse at the local hospital. “It’s great that they’re able to come back through again. We were afraid after the flood that it was going to be over, after seeing the devastation. It’s like the town’s coming together again.”
Helene destroyed tracks belonging to three railroads in Western North Carolina, cutting the region off to freight rail service for months. All the damaged rail was repaired last year, except for the 15 miles of Norfolk Southern’s AS Line between Grovestone and Old Fort.
The first train to traverse that section since the storm left Hickory at 8:15 a.m. Saturday headed west toward Asheville. It rolled into Old Fort at 10:48 a.m. and stopped so the crowd could take pictures. It then rolled off toward a remarkable section of tracks called the Old Fort Loops that climb the mountains through a series of tunnels and horseshoe turns up and over the Eastern Continental Divide.
This rugged and remote section of railroad was badly damaged by Helene’s flooding rains, with the tracks washed out or buried under fallen trees and landslides in dozens of places. Norfolk Southern spent months after the storm evaluating the line before announcing last May that it would be rebuilt.
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The railroad set up a tent outside the town’s old train station and handed out hats, wooden train whistles and other company merchandise. A song by James Phillips about bringing the trains back to Old Fort played over a loudspeaker.
“RJ Coman came rolling into Old Fort,” the song goes, referring to the contractor that rebuilt the rails. “Put this town back together, tie by tie.”
People held flags and signs to welcome the train like a long-absent friend.
“The railroad is truly part of Old Fort’s DNA,” said Cathy Moore, who grew up in town and retired here after a career that took her far afield. “For us to lose that, it was hard to even think about.”
Passenger trains have passed through Old Fort since 1975. There’s hope now that Amtrak and the N.C. Department of Transportation will decide to run passenger trains to Asheville and stop in town. Asheville is the most requested rail destination in North Carolina not yet served by Amtrak, according to NCDOT, which published a study in January on the economic and tourism benefits of restoring passenger service to the mountains.
Ralph Massera of Matthews, who heads All Aboard Carolinas, an advocacy group for passenger rail service, said the restoration of the Old Fort Loops was a necessary first step to bringing passenger trains back to the mountains. The Loops, Massera said, would be a reason to ride.
“Scenic beauty,” Massera said. “Wouldn’t be the fastest. When they climb those loops there, they get down to 25, 30 mph up the hill.”
The straight-line distance up the mountain from near Old Fort to Swannanoa Gap is about 3 miles; the Old Fort Loops, as this section of railroad is known, twists and turns for 9 miles before emerging from the final tunnel at Ridgecrest.
Norfolk Southern’s engineers used drones equipped with LiDAR lasers to map the route and compare it to LiDAR data it had collected before the storm. The railroad and its contractors trucked in 140,000 tons of stone to rebuild washed-out rail bed and shore up embankments and nearly 52,000 linear feet of steel for new retaining walls.
Alan Johnson, Norfolk Southern’s chief engineer for design and construction, said the railroad built new and more durable retaining walls and other structures that will make this section of track more resilient during the next storm.
The line is used to serve local customers, primarily between Asheville and Hickory, with one train a day in each direction, said David Lehlbach, the assistant vice president for strategic planning. Some of those customers haven’t been able to ship or receive goods since the storm, because trucks can’t handle such heavy loads.
With the return of trains, Lehlbach said he heard from a company along the line that would like to begin shipping by rail again.
This story was originally published April 18, 2026 at 1:34 PM.
