
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, November 10, 1995                   TAG: 9511100066
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHARLOTTE, N.C.                                LENGTH: Medium

MILLIONAIRE SPILLING BUCKS, INK TO DERAIL NS CONTROL OF RAILROAD

A Greensboro millionaire is drawing on his bank account in an attempt to derail an agreement between Norfolk Southern Corp. and North Carolina's state railroad.

Walker Rucker has commissioned political cartoons bashing Gov. Jim Hunt over the N.C. Railroad Co.'s operating agreement with Norfolk Southern, which has run the state-controlled line for 101 years.

Rucker mails the cartoons to NCRR private shareholders, urging them to boycott a special meeting next month where Norfolk Southern's lease renewal will be considered. If enough shareholders boycott the meeting, no vote could be taken.

The NCRR wants shareholders to approve a 30-year lease extension for Norfolk Southern on its 317-mile line, which connects Charlotte, Greensboro and Raleigh to the port of Morehead City.

Rucker claims Hunt influenced the NCRR board to give Norfolk Southern low lease rates so the governor can offer more incentives to industries looking to relocate in North Carolina.

The state owns 3 million of the 4 million NCRR shares. The rest is held by about 1,000 private shareholders, including Rucker, who owns 2.5 percent of the stock.

Rucker, 72, is the great-great-grandson of Gov. John Motley Morehead, who built the NCRR in the 1840s to put farmers within a two-day train ride of a port.

So far, Rucker has mailed a half-dozen cartoons to shareholders poking fun at Hunt - one depicting him as an engineer taking a train on a suicide plunge. In another, the governor is a crooning mermaid wooing boat paddlers to sure ruin.

Rucker comes up with the ideas and pays a cartoonist friend to draw them. He has spent between $50,000 and $100,000 on the campaign, the Charlotte Observer reported.

Under the proposed lease, Norfolk Southern would pay rent of $8 million a year. But Rucker and his supporters say the lease would provide a return on investment of just 1.5 percent. Norfolk Southern has threatened to abandon the NCRR line, jeopardizing 300 jobs at a Davidson County rail yard, if it doesn't get a deal it likes.

The governor's office isn't pleased with the cartoons.

``So much for substantive debate on serious policy issues,'' said Hunt spokeswoman Rachel Perry.

by CNB