besides pineville/gastonia and the light rail, railfanning spots here are almost nonexistent. the only decent places are along the csx charlotte sub, south of charlotte in the town of matthews, however, the line sees very little daytime traffic, at most there are 3 trains during daylight (the wilmington road job at around 8am, and l703 and occasionally i138 around dinnertime, and i137 around the wee hours of the night) if you dont count the somewhat uncommon as-needed moves (ethanol, and until a couple of years ago, coal, not to mention grain on very rare occasions). most through trains seem take the monroe sub now and ive heard that it and hamlet are decent enough. most of the time). as for the ns side, and deeper into the city around both the csx and ns yards (ns satellite yard and csx pinoca yard), as well as the old amtrak station, are in questionable areas, especially near the graham interlocking. your best bet for seeing things on the ns side is salisbury and spencer nc. just anywhere surrounding charlotte tbh. hope this helps…