Dillsboro business owners are collecting signatures for a petition to bring the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad back to their community. They hope it will spearhead economic development, but then everything else in the public arena is touted as doing that, too. The project was “derailed” after Jackson County leaders refused to give the railroad around $700,000 in a to-be-forgiven loan after the GSMR refused to show them requested financials.