[Photo: Some bright green shipping containers stacked at a transloading site off of Main Street in Raeford.]

Folks in Raeford have a keen sense of curiosity, enough to stop and ask, “what is THAT?” when something new or different appears. Something new and different did appear in downtown Raeford in the Edinborough shopping center parking lot recently, and it had at least one citizen calling the News-Journal to try and find out more.

A big white truck cab hitched up to a piece of heavy equipment was parked down at the shopping center near the Wangz restaurant. The equipment, a Google search says, is a Diamond Z 6000 series horizontal grinder, also known as a great big wood chipper. It belongs to a company called American Fuel Harvesters, which has its headquarters in New Jersey, but is also registered through the North Carolina Secretary of State.

A call to the American Fuel Harvesters CEO wasn’t returned by News-Journal deadline Tuesday, but another call to Carl Hollowell of Aberdeen and Rockfish Railroad cleared everything up.

The industrial sized wood chipper is connected to the other new thing in town people have been asking about. It’s hard to miss the large, bright green containers parked in several locations around Raeford. As it turns out, A&R Railroad will be part of the transport chain for American Fuel Harvesters.

“We’re in the process of handling freight that will be moving down into the central, mid Atlantic region,” Hollowell said by phone Tuesday.

They’ll be doing transloading for American Fuel Harvesters: moving shipments between rail and tractor-trailer transports. The work will be done in the area just off of Main Street behind the Chamber of Commerce, which was once the local train depot.

Hollowell said the railroad is hopeful the venture will grow to the point they’ll need to move to a larger location.

But, why are the containers that shade of green?

It’s apparently American Fuel Harvesters’ corporate color, Hollowell said.

“They’ve acquired a lot of new tractor-trailers and that’s just their company logo color,” he said.

As for American Fuel Harvesters’ big wood chipper, it was delivered to Raeford from Idaho on its way to a location in South Carolina.