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The Spencer Railway Museum North Carolina's tribute to railroad history. By Willie Drye C.E. spear, Jr., learned his trade as a machinist by working on steam-powered locomotives half a century ago. You'd think he would have a hard time putting those skills to use today. Think again. Spear finds plenty of work at the North Carolina Transportation Museum in his home town of Spencer. Spear, who once repaired locomotive boilers, knows all about the complex innards of a steam locomotive—from how the pistons work to turn the giant wheels down to small details like why a certain type of bolt has to be used on a particular part of the boiler. On any given day, you're likely to find him and other volunteers busily restoring an old locomotive to the glory of
On the other end of the spectrum, you can see the kind of luxury once enjoyed by North Carolina tobacco baron James B. Duke, who accumulated one of the great fortunes of the early 20thcentury. Duke traveled in comfort when he went to New York or Newport, and the museum has his restored private railroad car on display. Spencer, a small town northwest of Charlotte, was named after Samuel Spencer, the first president of Southern Railway, who decided to build the railroad's main repair shop here because it is exactly halfway between Southern's two main terminals in Washington, DC, and Atlanta. The facility opened in 1896, and the town grew around the complex. A bustling little downtown commercial district blossomed across the street. It was a railroad town to the core. Wives of engineers knew by the sound of the steam whistles when their husbands' locomotives were pulling into the shops' yard. Housewives in town learned to gauge the wind direction before hanging out their wash. If they were downwind of the shops, laundry would get spotted with soot. The repair plant eventually covered 57 acres, and work there never stopped. Southern's steam locomotives had to be routinely serviced after every 150 miles, and three shifts of workers labored around the clock every day of the year to keep the fleet running. When a locomotive arrived at the shops, workers first washed it with a solution of water and cleaning solvents heated to 180 degrees. Then the engine chugged to the yard's giant turntable, where it was routed into one of the roundhouse's 37 bays for maintenance and inspection. If the locomotive needed heavy maintenance or a complete overhaul, it went to the gigantic Back Shop. Six hundred feet long, it was once the largest brick building in North Carolina. At its peak, Spencer was filled with the clatter and soot created by 2,500 people working on the steam-driven railroad. "It was a big family," says Spear, who worked at the repair depot from 1942 until 1960, when Southern closed the Spencer Shops because their new fleet of diesel locomotives didn't need the near-constant attention the quirky old steamers required. "I enjoyed the fellowship. It seemed like you’d accomplished something at the end of the day." Visitors can learn more about the work that people like Spear did in the museum's 1924 vintage roundhouse. The building's locker room, where employees once started and ended their workdays, houses detailed exhibits explaining the jobs of the various craftsmen and laborers and their tools—from tiny calipers capable of measuring fractions of an inch to huge wrenches that took a couple of men to handle. Young men and women followed their parents and relatives into the railroad shops and the offices where dozens of clerks handled the paperwork that kept the operation organized. It was blue-chip work if you could get it. Spear recalls being paid 50 cents an hour when he started work at the Spencer Shops straight out of high school. That was the entry level wage, and it was more than double what most other employers in the area were paying at the time.
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