Family Road

No. 1 U. S. railroad, alphabetically speaking, is Aberdeen & Rockfish. It is 45 miles long, owns three locomotives and connects the North Carolina towns of Fayetteville and Aberdeen. Known far & wide is A. & R. for a rather dubious distinction. Every time ICC cooks up a legal action against all U. S. railroads A. & R., with an et al. after its name, represents the entire list. But A. & R. has another distinction, which was gaining importance last week: it is the principal rail route to Fort Bragg, the U. S. Army's 125,000-acre artillery post. Since defense preparations began the little line has hauled some 200 cars of soldiers and equipment to the Fort, which is undergoing a $2,000,000 overhauling to prepare for a tripled personnel. Last week A. & R. was busy preparing for further traffic increases.

Of some 500 U. S. short lines (leftovers of the railroad consolidation era), none has shown a tougher and more independent spirit than A. & R. It was born 48 years ago when a burly Scot named John Blue laid the rails to get his lumber, turpentine and rosin to town. Today it originates 35% of its freight traffic, gets the rest through strategic connections with the Seaboard, Atlantic Coast Line, Norfolk Southern and Cape Fear roads. Some 20% of its freight revenue comes from petroleum; the rest is fertilizer, coal, farm produce, and material for Fort Bragg (20% of non-originated freight). All this, plus $6,000 worth of mail and a $5,000 passenger traffic, gave A. & R. a $150,000 gross, $12,000 net last year.

Unlike many a bigger road, A. & R. is no stranger to net profits. Only once has it failed to show a profit in the last 20 years. Never has it failed to pay preferred dividends and bond interest ($8,949). For this rare railroading record, natives credit the canny Scot management of the sons of old John Blue, gaunt, black-haired, bushy-browed President William Alexander Blue, 59; small, emaciated Vice President Halbert Johnston Blue, 44, and Secretary-Treasurer Henry McCoy Blue, 42.

Scotch Presbyterian to the core, Will Blue does not run his road on Sunday unless "the ox is in the ditch." He was the first Southern railroader to get cotton rates reduced, first North Carolinian to offer door-to-door delivery with trucks. He was also the first railroader to get an RFC loan. Said Jesse Jones: "Will, I'm afraid of short lines, but I'm not afraid of one owned and operated by a bunch of Scottish Presbyterians." Five years later the loan was repaid. Blessed with a non-absentee ownership (the Blues and their two sisters own all but a fraction of the common), A. & R. can afford to indulge its whims. Because it had wrecks on three successive Thanksgiving Days, A. & R. operates only five days in Thanksgiving week.

Last week A. & R. had become a vital link in the U. S.'s national defense system. Over its contorted route* moved tons of material to refurbish Fort Bragg, which A. & R. reaches by way of the Cape Fear switching line at Skibo. A. & R.'s freight and passenger traffic to Fort Bragg was already up 15% over last year. In the hot July sun a husky crew of Tarheel Negroes were laying new 80-lb. rails to bolster the most dangerous curves against the big movement of troops (34 carloads last fortnight) and supplies to come. This week construction begins on a 100-freight-car siding at Skibo. Altogether, some $20,000 worth of improvements will have gone into the line by September. That the canny Blues were spending so much money for new construction was proof enough that they saw real traffic ahead.

*Ribbed by Brigadier General William Bryden, until recently Fort Bragg commandant, Henry Blue defended A. & R.'s zigzag route with the assertion: . . . "Hitler's bombers . . . couldn't hit it twice on a bet."

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