Eastern Railroad Discussion > Some Estill, SC action

I usually travel US 321 through SC as an alternate to I-95 & I-26, shaves a few miles and some road rage off the drive. US 321 follows the CSX Columbia Sub (Savannah, GA - Columbia, SC), part of the old Seaboard and route of Amtrak's Silver Star. I have never stumbled across any daylight trains on the many times I have traveled through here. This past Monday the curse was broken. As I approached the small town of Estill, I came across a local with CSX 7813 and CSX 9000 for power. They had set out a gondola of panel track, then commenced to run around their train. There is a restored building to its 'Estill Bottling Company' likeness of decades ago. I had always seen this building and thought it would make a good backdrop to shoot a train against. Unluckily, the sun was still low on the morning horizon so I had to settle for this shot. Also managed to snap a shot of the caboose (shoving platform) on the local. Enjoy...

TJ Mahan
Green Cove Springs, FL

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Nice catch TJ!

I have driven through Estill a couple of times. A couple of miles north of town the bridge supports of the former Carolina Midland, then Southern show where the tracks crossed over.

Tom Daspit
Morgan Hill, CA
Tom's Trains

TJ, always nice to find that "surprise" train.

Now, as to your hometown, is the small depot and railroad display still at the museum? About 20 years ago I took photos of all angles of that depot with intentions of building a like sized duplicate in my backyard. Never happened as we moved shortly thereafter. However I still would like to build that perfectly sized depot for a backyard building.

Jay

That's one UGLY shoving platform, what a shameful piece of equipment, a terrible CSX corporate image.

Nice to see what the dip on the north side of town looks like. I never see it during the day. Did you go to stonehenge?

I drive it too when I head to Jax, Fl. I never see anything during the day, but I did see a nb Amtrak and nb CSX hopper train about 4AM, on a couple of trips.

This line just seems to be hit and miss as far as action. I've been through there several times over the past few years (twice in the past year). Of the two latter trips, one day was completely dead and the other had three trains within a 45 minute span.

Two places to check are the controlled sidings at Gifford about 7 miles north of Estill and at Garnett, about 8 miles south. If there's going to be more than one train in the area, you'll find them meeting at one of those two locations.

Estill is a pretty neat place...there's actually a lot more trackage there than meets the eye. If you take a drive back along the side streets to the west of the main, you'll find both a wye AND a diamond crossing among the various industrial tracks. There's also a small yard hidden back in there (2-3 tracks).

Jay, yes the little depot is still there as well as the ACL caboose, which now has a metal roof over it. Both are still in great condition, the town has taken pride into the artifacts and kept them maintained!

As for the old flyover of the Carolina Midland north of town, that is another shot I would love to grab as 2 of the old bridge pillars sit immediately on either side of the main.

TJ Mahan
Green Cove Springs, FL

TJ,

Thanks. That is great to hear. Seems every time I am in FL I never have time to swing by to make another visit to the museum. I will have to make time on my next trip down.


Jay