Eastern Railroad Discussion > Hamlet Subdivision

How much freight is on CSX's Hamlet Subdivision?  Are there any through trains over this route or locals only?    

Hamlet to Cheraw SC sees a L600 a couple times a week to serve a loadout of an area mine - company trucks processed quartz and loads in open top hoppers in 10-15 car cuts.  L600 is a Tues-Sat job that works Hamlet, Rockingham, Wadesboro area and venues down that way as needed.   No freight from Cheraw all the way south to Camden.  Camden to Columbia has a local out of Lugoff I believe.  Only regular traffic Cheraw to Camden is Amtrak, however, CSX will occasionally run a detour that way. Last one I am aware of was a coal train about a month ago. 

How much freight ran on this line in the Seaboard Air Line days?

Just to give you a mid-era data point when I started going to Hamlet in the mid-1980s (very early CSX) the only through freights on that line were 463/464 between Hamlet and Columbia. That line was always the weakest of the bunch that radiated from Hamlet.

Hopefully someone can answer about SAL days. But the ACL mainline winning out in the SCL merger really killed most of the old SAL routes.

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Side note I failed to mention, a significant portion of the Amtrak only portion between Camden and Cheraw is still good old fashion bolted stick rail, not CWR.  Bit of a rarity for an Amtrak route these days



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/26 06:26 by scraphauler.

Northern Wrote:
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> How much freight ran on this line in the Seaboard
> Air Line days?

Usually you had 93 & 94 that were second class through freights, plus probably 4-5 locals. This was primarily the passenger line. Sometimes hot freights off the primarily freight East Carolina Line had to detour on the Hamlet Sub. There was a swing or drawbridge on the EC Line at either Charleston or Savannah that came to trouble sometimes, prompting the detours.

Post-merger in 71 when I started working on the Hamlet Sub, we had hot piggybacker 175 and time freight 190 in addition to the second class freights 593 & 594.

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In a 1957 employee timetable, Hamlet-Columbia had one freight (93/94) and four passenger (7/8, 9/10, 21/22, and 57/58). Hamlet-Andrews had freights 50/51, 70/71, 75, 86, 97, and 280. Andrews-Charleston had freights 67, 70/71, 75, 80, 86, 97, and 280; all but 70/71 continued to Savannah.  

The Seaboard Coast Line merger was competed on July 1, 1967.  SCL began diverting traffic off of the SAL's East Carolina line through Andrews and Charleston as soon as necessary connection tracks could be built.  From late 1968 until 1972, the former SAL TT-23 Razorback piggyback (the fastest scheduled freight train in America in the mid-1960's) was combined with the former ACL 175 Piggyback Special (Potomac Yard to Jacksonville) and routed via the Seaboard through Raleigh, Hamlet and Columbia via the Hamlet Subdivision under the number 175.  The northbound equivalent, 176, was never diverted from the ACL routing and continued running through Charleston, Florence and Rocky Mount.  In 1972, 175 was returned to the ACL routing (now called the A-Line) because it was straighter, faster and lacked significant grades.  Train 275, also a piggyback, was added through Raleigh and Hamlet to Atlanta.  

In the 4/70 timetable, first-class 175 was due out of Richmond 0830 exMo, arr North Hamlet Yard 1445, lv Hamlet Yard 1800, arr Moncrief 0245.

No. 175 was a major production at the North Yard in Hamlet. The train was bled off and humped. The cars went on different trains, and cars off other trains were added. Occasionally I would get to hump 175 , running the Baldwin S12 humpset with a big rheostat. Sometimes I would be over the hump in the class tracks catching auto and truck racks and certain pigs with a Baldwin pull-back switcher. There would be other pull-back engines in other class tracks doing the same. We did this to soften the couplings and reduce damage and save time in assembling blocked cuts. Most of the time I was in the big Hamlet Diesel Shop getting the power ready for 175 to Florida and 275 to Atlanta. For a while E's were used on 275. At least once I got to be the fireman on 175. It took a lot of people and work to get 175 quickly humped and reassembled with all the connections made. But this was the Seaboard and Hamlet was it's hub. It was run by good railroaders, and it was a priceless place to learn.

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Three fond memories of 175 during its short tenure running on the Seaboard:

1.  Standard power between Richmond and Hamlet was usually five (5) GP-40's (15,000 horsepower), plenty of power to staighten out those highly superelevated curves on the Norlina and Aberdeen Subdivisions.  

2.  175, along with hotshots 227 and 115, often changed crews on-the-fly at the Raleigh passenger station.  

3.  Some fellow railfans and I were at the north end of Hamlet Yard during a snowstorm in the winter of 1970, watching 175 arrive from Raleigh.  Several hobos were huddled under one of the piggyback trailers.  Can you imagine that brisk trip at 70 mph in the snow?

Jay Best
Raleigh, NC