Editing Seaboard Air Line Railroad (section)

===Early 19th century===
The complex corporate history of the Seaboard began on March 8, 1832, when its earliest predecessor, the [[Portsmouth and Roanoke Railroad]] was chartered by the legislatures of Virginia and North Carolina to build a railroad from [[Portsmouth, Virginia]], to the [[Roanoke River]] port of [[Weldon, North Carolina]]. After a couple of months of horse-drawn operation, the first locomotive-pulled service on this line began on September 4, 1834, with a twice-daily train from Portsmouth to [[Suffolk, Virginia]], 17 miles away.{{sfnp|Prince|2000}}

By June 1837 the railroad was completed to Weldon, where a connection was made with the tracks of the [[Wilmington and Raleigh Railroad]] (later part of the [[Atlantic Coast Line Railroad]]). In 1846, after suffering financial difficulties, the P&R was reorganized as the [[Seaboard and Roanoke Railroad]], known informally as the '''Seaboard Road'''.{{citation needed|date = December 2015}}

Meanwhile, the [[Raleigh and Gaston Railroad]] had begun construction on November 1, 1836, with the first scheduled service between its endpoints beginning on March 21, 1840.  After the [[American Civil War]], this was advertised as the '''Inland Air-Line Route'''. By 1853, the Raleigh and Gaston had connected with the Seaboard and Roanoke at Weldon, thus offering travelers through service on the 176-mile route from Portsmouth to Raleigh.{{sfnp|Prince|2000}} Both railroads were built to {{Track gauge|56.5in|allk=on}}, rather than the {{Track gauge|5ft|lk=on}} gauge favored by most other railroads in the South; therefore, cars of both roads could run on the entire route, eliminating the need for travelers or freight to make a [[break of gauge|change of cars]].{{citation needed|date = December 2015}}

The R&G takeover also gave the P&R control of the Raleigh & Augusta Air-Line Railroad which the former road controlled.  This was the first time "Air Line" appeared as part of a Seaboard predecessor. The R&AA-L began as the Chatham Railroad, chartered by the state on February 14, 1855 (from the 1877 booklet, "History Of The Raleigh & August Air-Line Railroad" compiled by Walter Clark, Attorney At Law) to build a rail line, "...between Deep River, at or near the Coalfields, [[Moncure, North Carolina|Moncure, NC]] in the county of Chatham, and the City of Raleigh or some point on the North Carolina Railroad." The project was riddled with delays and finally reorganized as the Raleigh & Augusta Air-Line in 1871. It eventually reached Hamlet in 1877 which in later years was a major SAL terminal point. With a route that now extended through North Carolina the three roads offered a competitive network serving several important cities. The South was also blossoming into an industrial giant in the area of cotton, agriculture/farming, textiles, and manufacturing.