sorry for the double post, but here is the history so far. (I stopped at the first gap in the timeline)
The earliest traces of the Charleston Asheville and Louisville railroad can be found in 1841, with the chartering of the Carolina & Western Railway by the state of South Carolina. The C&W was tasked with laying the groundwork for southern industrialization, branching out from the bustling port of Charleston, South Carolina into the sparsely populated Appalachian region to the west. State funding and land grants allowed for the railroad to be built quickly, and by 1850 the railroad had built an extensive network for the era. Initial plans for the railroad limited it to South Carolina, however after Walter F Bristol was appointed president in 1849, a new vision soon drove the railroad to rapidly expand. W. F. Bristol envisioned a “southern trunk line,” with Charleston at its core, and he soon took advantage of the means at his disposal to fulfill this dream. The vagueness of the charter allowed the railroad to penetrate deep into the coal fields in the western part of the state, and as Charleston became more and more a hub of industrial activity, this precious resource increased in value. The road’s key position in the region was augmented by the state’s land grants given to the line, and money poured into the company from its real-estate holdings in the region. The company owned the land in which the coal was buried, the mines that unearthed it, and the railroad that transported it, allowing it to price its coal competitively and make tremendous amounts of money. Two years later, the railroad had the funds to continue building northward into North Carolina, and by 1858 the road had reached both Raleigh and Charlotte. The acquisition of the North Carolina & Atlantic railroad in 1859 brought the railroad to Asheville, North Carolina at its northern end, and the time seemed ripe for more expansion.
The North Carolina & Atlantic railroad was founded in 1846, as a broad gauge railroad linking the North Carolina cities of Asheville and Fayetteville. Although hopes were high for the railroad, lack of access to a deep water port and its isolation as the only broad gauge line in the region would prove to cripple the regional player. Coal traffic from western North Carolina was enough to keep the railroad from bankruptcy, however its weak position prevented it from further expansion. After being acquired by the Carolina & Western in January of 1859, the C&W dual gauged the line from its connection in Perkins, North Carolina to Asheville, North Carolina, which was completed September of that year. The Fayetteville branch would remain broad gauge until after the Civil War, however.
The eruption of the Civil War put a halt to any further construction plans the road may have had in store. As resources were shipped to the front, the Carolina & Western became an important North-South link for the confederacy, and traffic levels on the line surged to new heights. However this early blessing came at a heavy cost. Several times during the war, the railroad came under attack by Union spies and insurgent groups. Two locomotives were sabotaged, and another derailed during the course of the war, putting a strain on an already weakened industrial system. Blockades against southern ports like Charleston severely hurt the railroad as well, and slowly the road’s cash reserves began to run dry. As the war progressed, and Confederate lines were pushed back farther and farther, the railroad soon found itself aiding the retreat of the remnants of Southern armies. As Sherman marched his troops to the Atlantic Ocean through the heart of the Confederacy, Union troops crippled the C&W to a point from which it would never recover.
-Ben