060260 Street running, New Bern, N.C.: Once common in industrial and port areas, operation of trains on tracks embedded in streets, called street running, is now very rare. Street running in a residential section is even rarer. And this is the main line of the North Carolina Railroad between Raleigh, N.C., and Morehead City, N.C.

New Bern is North Carolina's second oldest city and was its first state capital. The North Carolina Railroad (NCRR) was built by the state in the late 1800s and is still state owned. The whole line is under long-term lease to Norfolk Southern( NS), which operates and dispatches the line. The section of the NCRR between Greensboro and Charlotte, N.C. is part of Norfolk Southern's busy north-south (mostly) double-track main line, with trains operating at speeds up to 79 miles per hour.

On the other hand, on this section of the line in far eastern North Carolina finds trains ambling down Hancock street at a walking pace. The locomotives are older diesels inherited by NS when it acquired part of Conrail.

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