Eastern Railroad Discussion > South Carolina Central

Last month I asked about the South Carolina Central, which operates ex-CSX trackage west of Florence, SC. Tonight at 11:15 I saw the job returning to Florence as it passed under I-95 with a pair of non-dynamic GP38-2's and exactly 50 cars. Sounded like mostly loads, and I don't think I saw a single boxcar among them. Several flats with (concrete?) pipe and plate steel, lots of mill gons, and lots of coal or gravel gons. I guess this job goes to work around noon?

I became a little intrigued by this railroad ever since watching them in Florence yard one night while on train 97 a few years ago. We were early into Florence, and the long station stop allowed me to see them finishing up putting a train together. They left town headed west just as we departed the station. I didn't see the entire train, but I would guess at about 40 - 50 cars.

The train that you saw actually originated out of the South Carolina Central's yard at Floyds, which is between Darlington and Hartsville. It is nicknamed the night hauler as it works predominately under the cover of darkness. It was on the way to Florence to interchange with CSX before returning back to their yard. It sounds like most of the traffic on it was from the Nucor steel plant which is also located near the SCRF yard.

They also have other jobs that work during the day, however I'm not sure of the frequency that they run now. The Nucor switcher used to run Mon-Sa but it spends the largest amount of time inside the mill. There were also the Hartsville and Bishopville jobs. The latter runs to the huge landfill at Bishopville. The Darlington switcher would of course work around it's namesake town. All of these would run M-F but business has been down so there may have been some consolidations.

I live in the Myrtle Beach area and often thought about railfanning the SCCR in the Hartsville/Darlington areas until I came across the following on YouTube.  We can't post links here -- just go to the Tube and search: "Railroad men Say No To Photography from Public Property" and "Pulled Over For Taking Photos of Railroads -- Day 1: Part 1"  (There's a Part 2 as well).  Tells a lot about what these folks think of railfans photographing them.  The videos are two years old so maybe the mentallity has changed - who knows...

Bob

I've fanned a few times up there over the last few years with no issues.

Posted from iPhone

Tim Rich
S. Ogden, UT

lc-rwy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The train that you saw actually originated out of
> the South Carolina Central's yard at Floyds, which
> is between Darlington and Hartsville. It is
> nicknamed the night hauler as it works
> predominately under the cover of darkness.

Good info! Found the yard off Floyds Rd. and Leavenworth on Google. I'm surprised to hear they run multiple jobs, I guess there is a lot of business up there.