My gransparents lived in Clarks Hill, SC on SCL's Augusta to Greenwood line in the late 70's-early 80's. I used to watch a lot of trains on this line as a kid, but I am too young to remember the frequency of trains on this line. Does anybody know what type of operations SCL ran on this line during this time? Thanks for any info! Bryan

-- Bryan Russell (btr5353@mindspring.com), August 20, 2001

Answers

Bryan, in addition to the scheduled SCL trains, SCL ran what were known as "GE specials", which were gas turbines built at the Greenville GE plant for overseas shipment through Charleston or Savannah and for domestic power plants as well. These shipments were generally "high, wide and heavy" restricted loads requiring twelve and sixteen axle depressed center flatcars with spacer cars and restricted speeds. As the trains were usually short (seven cars or so) one GP-7 was generally assigned. Crews were called from the River Jct. (Greenville) extra board, deadhead to Laurens to pick up the GP and cab, then ran cab light to the GE plant to assemble the train. When the train was made up, it returned to Laurens and thence to Augusta. Crew was changed at Augusta and Deadheaded back to River Jct. A similar routine continues today with Carolina Piedmont originating the move and then handing the train over to CSX at Laurens. The Carolina Piedmont was extensively reballasted and re-tied and 80 lb. rail replaced with 100 and 110 lb. rail in 1998/99, in large part to handle these shipments.

Steve Kamp

-- Steve Kamp (sakamp@hotmail.com), August 25, 2003.

Bryan,

Check out the 6/98 issue of Trains Magazine, if you haven’t already. The feature story is on CSX's Spartenburg Sub. The 10-page spread addresses the obstacles of moving freight over the Clark, Snead and Ora Hills. While the article is about CSX, the author Jeffrey Harwell also grew up on this sub and includes quite a bit of historic background as well as several ACL & SCL photos.

My 5/1/71 employee timetable lists the following SCL scheduled trains:

Westward (Southbound)-- #397 1st class through freight, #363 2nd class through freight, #529 3rd class local & #517 4th class local.

Eastward (Northbound) -- #392 first class through freight, #518 &528 3rd class locals & #364 through freight 4th class.

As mentioned in the article, coal traffic from the Clinch increased in the late 70's.

This is beautiful country to watch trains!

-- Mark Kuehler (qler@cfl.rr.com), August 26, 2001.