Does anyone have photographs of the Southern Railway trains on the ACL trackage rights between Jacksonville and Hardeeville?

-- Michael W. Savchak (Savchak @MNR.org), July 27, 2000

Answers

I have been interested in the system in southwestern SC that included the Southern line between Cayce and Hardeeville.

It appears to me as though it represented an alliance between Southern and ACL to create a Columbia, SC - Savannah, GA route in competition with the smoother and more direct SAL route (former Fla. Central & Paninsular)still operated by CSX. It stands to reason that this relationship expired when ACL & CSX merged in 1967. It appears that the first abandonment on the Cayce-Hardeeville line occurred shortly after that time, from Hardeeville to Furman before 1970. Does anyone have any insight or info on this apparent business relationship?

I notice that the line crossed two other ACL owned or affiliated lines, & seemed to have interchanges with each: the ACL (former Manchester & Augusta, now abandoned) in Barnwell, SC; and the Charleston & Western Carolina in Allendale, now operated by CSX. On the other hand, the line crossed the SAL line just north of Estill, SC, by means of a bridge with very long inclines on fill leading up to it in flat coastal plain country, instead of a presumably much cheaper diamond. This seems to confirm that Southern was chummy with ACL but in a hostile relationship to SAL.

Another Q: were the ACL/Southern partnership and trackage agreements mutual? I note that the former ACL line coming west from Sumter, SC ended in Columbia, in a small yard quite near where the Southern lines crossed the Congaree River between Columbia and Cayce. Did ACL trains ever use the Cayce-Hardeeville line to proceed to Hardeeville and points beyond (or from Hardeeville to Columbia)?

-- Mitch B (chemmiedeletethis@mindspring.com), January 01, 2004.

Mitch B -

If you obtain a copy of SRHA's Nov-Dec 1999 issue of Ties, your questions should be answered:

http://www.srha.net/public/TIES/ties_detail.asp?index=56

-- Jack Wyatt (cjwyatt@bellsouth.net), January 02, 2004.