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The Murphy Branch is a branch line operated by the Western North Carolina Railroad, later the Richmond and Danville, Southern Railway, the Norfolk Southern Railway (NS) and today the Blue Ridge Southern Railroad. The branch runs between Asheville, North Carolina in the east and Murphy in the west.
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I-40 from Asheville to Canton and US Route 74, also known as the Great Smoky Mountains Expressway, from Canton to Murphy, roughly parallel the railway. Grades on the Murphy Branch exceed 4.0% in two places.[1]
It was constructed with convict lease labor between 1880 and 1891 under the charter of the Western North Carolina Railroad.[2] The Murphy Branch was important to the development of southwestern North Carolina in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It opened up the isolated and rural mountains west of Asheville to the outside world, allowing easy travel and improved commerce. These tracks stimulated the development of Western North Carolina.
In the 1980s, Norfolk Southern decided to close the Murphy Branch west of Sylva because of declining freight traffic. The NCDOT purchased the branch west of Dillsboro in 1988, the first purchase under NCDOT's program to preserve rail corridors. It granted trackage rights between Dillsboro and Andrews to the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad (GSMR), a tourist excursion railroad that also provides freight service. In 1996, the NCDOT sold the Dillsboro-Andrews portion of the Murphy Branch to the GSMR.
In April 2014, Norfolk Southern announced that it would be selling the Asheville-Dillsboro leg of the Murphy Branch to Watco, a short-line railroad headquartered in Pittsburg, Kansas. A new North Carolina Limited Liability Company was established and named the Blue Ridge Southern Railroad to manage this.[3] The deal closed and operations began on 26 July 2014.
The GSMR continues to own the Dillsboro to Andrews leg, and operates all but the westernmost portion between Hewitt and Andrews. The NCDOT continues to own the tracks between Andrews and Murphy; this section has been out of service continuously since 1985. The next year CSX abandoned and removed its connecting line in 1986 from Murphy southwestward into Georgia, formerly a line of the Louisville and Nashville.
The Murphy Branch still plays a vital role in the industrial economy of western North Carolina. The rail line serves Jackson Paper Manufacturing Company in Sylva[citation needed] and 70 percent of its business came from the Pactiv Evergreen paper mill in Canton which closed in 2023, forcing the railroad to make cutbacks. Chemicals used in the making of epsom salt are delivered to Premier Magnesia (formerly Giles Chemical) in Waynesville, and the paper mill's closure led to the largest epsom salt supplier in the Americas getting help from Haywood County to deal with the rail service cutbacks and prevent the company from leaving after 70 years.[6] There are several small concrete mixing facilities that receive sand. Woodchips are loaded at T&S Hardwoods in Addie, about 4 miles east of Sylva. Liquefied petroleum gas is delivered to a transfer facility a few miles outside of Sylva in the community of Beta.
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