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End of the Line for the Carolina Southern Railroad

Joseph C Hinson

Blog #12 of 48

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January 24th, 2015 - 11:26 PM

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End of the Line for the Carolina Southern Railroad

The end of the line for the Carolina Southern Railroad should be sometime within the next thirty days. The railroad has been shut down voluntarily (I used air quotes in my mind when I wrote that.) since August 2011 when Federal Railroad Administrations inspectors found a number of bridges in dire need of repair. This didn't come as much of a shock to railfans in the area. They had also had several derailments in recent years and some YouTube videos of Carolina Southern trains made it apparent the tracks were in bad shape, even for ten mile per hour trains.

It's a little hard to believe, but the last time I shot the Carolina Southern Railroad was in July of 2006. It's not that far from me, but just far enough to be a pain to get there and not know if I might catch something running or not. At one time the railroad had an interesting collection of motive power:

2 ex-Canadian National Funits in Carolina Southern red and white
1 ex-Canadian National cabless F unit still in CN paint
1 ex-Southern high hood GP30, in faded and rusting SOU paint
1 ex-Norfolk & Western high hood GP18 in faux Atlantic Coast Line paint
1 grey ex-Mid Atlantic Railroad GP18
1 Pullman Green Carolina Southern GP18
2 red and white Carolina Southern GP18s

One year a few days after Christmas, we went down to catch them running. No such luck. We caught one train sitting in Mullins, SC though with the Pullman Green locomotive up front.



A year and a half later, we went back down during the hot, high sun days of summer. We had followed the line down from Chadbourn, NC, which I can spell at least three different ways, all the way to Myrtle Beach before giving up and going to Springmaid Pier. Naturally, on our way home when I was already done cussing about missing the train, we caught it in Conway.



We did a U-turn to see how far it may go. Both shots give some indication as to how much time they spent on track maintenance.



With the railroad shut down since summer 2011, the local counties and owners of the railroad sparred about getting the trains rolling again. The owner of the Carolina Southern, Ken Pippin, applied for several grants from the federal governments, but received none of them. He said he had no money to build the line back up yet. There were many articles in the local papers and stories on local TV news that hinted at the deep divide between the two parties. A group was formed to try to get the railroad operating again. At some meetings, Pippin was asked not to attend.

People in the area wrote in to the newspaper and suggested the rails be pulled up. One letter to the editor talked about trains in the past tense, as if they were relegated to history. A blog from the area railed at the intrusion of the government into private enterprise. Neither point of view carried much weight. The local leaders understood the importance of railroads in an area where tourism is the biggest industry. Railroads bring industry in which in turns means more jobs to the locals and less big trucks on the highways.

The Carolina Southern sold two of the old F units and scrapped another one, They chopped the nose of the GP18 with the identity crisis, but never ran her again before finally scraping her, too. As for the passenger cars, they got sold to the Iowa Pacific and took a detour through my hometown to undergo some work on the Lancaster and Chester.



Meanwhile, I was kicking myself for not getting down more often. I lost some high resolution images to a hard drive crash. This was one of them.



I took it through a painterly program and saved it as best I could. I can go back and reshoot. Oddly enough, other shots from that day survived.



And this one I found late last year



The latest news is that the RJ Corman Group has filed paperwork with the Surface Transportation Board to purchase the railroad from Ken Pippin. They believe they can wrap up the deal within the next thirty days. When they come in, the Carolina Southern Railroad will cease to exist. Corman will put a lot of money into the tack and bridges. They'll bring in new motive power painted in their own paint scheme. It will be a new day on the railroad.

Carolina Southern is still in many ways a baby among railroads. They are the third shortline operator to ply the rails since CSX spun the lines off in the late 80s. Maybe this one will stick.

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Sharon French

9 Years Ago

San Diego , CA

It's wonderful that you have all this documented. Great work!