Long-dormant SC Lowcountry rail line is coming back online

By John McDermott, Editor – Post and Courier

It was built to serve the Lowcountry lumber industry more than a century ago.

Now it’s being revived, in a partial return to its roots.

For the first time in nearly 15 years, the steel wheels of commerce are set to roll again on the former Hampton and Branchville Railroad west of Charleston.

State-owned and -operated Palmetto Railways said it expects to begin running locomotives and freight cars this month along the renamed “Salkehatchie Subdivision,” more than a decade after the reactivation plan for the line came to light, according to CEO Patrick McCrory.

“It’s been a long time coming” he said last week.

The rural inland transportation corridor runs about 40 miles in a jagged southwest-northeast direction, linking a CSX main line in Hampton with Canadys north of Walterboro.

The “H and B,” as it was once called, is a product of of the pre-automobile era, when steam-powered locomotives and railcars were the primary mover of goods. Work began around 1890, when a Hampton lumber company began “laying tracks from its sawmill … northeast into the virgin stands of timber in the Salkehatchie … lowlands,” according to a historical retrospective published in the Charleston News and Courier in 1942. 

The first four-mile stretch stopped in tiny Crocketville before being extended to Miley, Moselle and Ashton.

“By then, the line was taking on some aspects of a railroad,” according to the newspaper report, prompting the ownership to seek a charter from state regulators “to operate as such.”

The company was cleared to start hauling freight from cotton to fertilizer for commercial customers in September 1892. For part of its life, up until about the 1950s, the line also accommodated passengers in a car nicknamed the “Boll Weevil.”

Despite its name, the H and B was never extended farther north to its intended Branchville terminus. Instead, its sawmill owners decided to “veer off” in an eastward direction, where timber was more plentiful, the News and Courier reported.

Ultimately, the line was tied into another set of tracks coming from the opposite direction, from Walterboro to Lodge.

The H and B handled its final haul for its last customer in 2012, when a load of coal was delivered to South Carolina Electric & Gas Co.’s now-closed Canadys Station. 

Plans to resurrect the line surfaced a few years later after the owners considered salvaging the tracks for scrap. State and local economic development officials noted the H and B, which had been well-maintained, could be revitalized to lure importers, exporters and other transportation businesses that require rail service and want to be near I-95.

In 2017, Colleton County financed the $6.5 million purchase for Charleston-based Palmetto Railways, which is part of the S.C. Commerce Department, “to support future industrial development” without any committed prospects in hand. Another $3 million has been invested in upgrades and repairs since the acquisition, with another $6 million planned for future improvements.

“Over the years we’ve kind of done two different concerted efforts,” McCrory said. “One was recruiting business, which has taken some time. That was a lot of that.” 

Meanwhile, he added, S.C. Commerce, the county and other job recruiters focused on developing and marketing nearby industrial sites to potential employers. 

One of the first two customers for the “Salkehatchie Sub” will be a future lumber distribution hub announced by Boise Cascade, tying the line back to its 1890s origins. The other is a new aggregate terminal that the North American division of German cement giant Heidelberg Materials announced last year.

The reboot features a public safety push to alert unwary motorists and pedestrians about “sporadic” rail traffic that has “no set schedule” at the 82 crossings along the reactivated line, including some with limited visibility.

“Always expect a train. Trains can be surprisingly quiet. A train may come at any time from either direction,” according to a plea for caution from Colleton County and Palmetto Railways.