Norfolk Southern O-Line

Overview.
The O-Line of the Norfolk Southern Railway is a seldom used freight line in the Piedmont region of North Carolina, running from Winston-Salem, NC to Charlotte, NC. Several sections are no longer in use, such as the Barium Springs to Mooresville section. While the O-Line saw much greater traffic during its heyday, the importance of the rail line to the Lake Norman region and the greater Charlotte metropolitan area have increased.
History.
The O-Line was originally created by the Atlantic, Tennessee, and Ohio Railroad in 1855. During the Civil War, the rail line was dismantled so that the rails could be used elsewhere for the war effort.
After the Civil War, the railroad was reconstructed on the original roadbed and began service again in 1871. The railroad was acquired by the Richmond & Danville Railroad shortly thereafter, until financial problems resulted in the acquisition of the railroad by Southern Railway. The O-Line dramatically increased the textile industry in the north Charlotte area and helped to bring prosperity and increased population to the towns of Huntersville, Davidson, and Mooresville. While passenger traffic declined, freight traffic continued to use the O-Line heavily until the late 1990's. The O-Line continued to be only one of two north-south Category-1 mainlines in North Carolina that did not require heavy usage of subsidiary connections.
Modern Era Usage.
While Norfolk Southern still uses the O-Line to service several industrial customers in the area north of Charlotte, according to Lake Norman Publications, the main value of the O-Line to Norfolk Southern lies in its strategic value in negotiating with the North Carolina Railroad Company:"The line – as Gray, Thunberg and Woods acknowledged years ago, and railroad historian and writer Dan Robie explains in an essay on the wvncrails.org website – combines with Norfolk Southern’s L-Line (between Winston-Salem and northern Mooresville) to provide an alternative to a high-demand 90-mile section of North Carolina Railroad Company (NCRC) owned track Norfolk Southern currently pays to use between Greensboro and Charlotte."According to news media outlets in the Charlotte region (such as WCNC), Norfolk Southern has always maintained a continuous and open stance on the possibility of CATS using the O-Line for a Light Rail route to Lake Norman.