Mark's Photo Travels

When you think of an abandoned railroad in Greenville County, the first and probably only one that might come to mind is the Greenville & Northern railroad, better known as the Swamp Rabbit. Another abandoned railroad used to run into downtown Greenville for many years, the Charleston & Western Carolina. The predecessor to the Charleston & Western Carolina (or the C&WC), the Greenville & Laurens, built a railroad into Greenville in 1884. A 1888 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map of Greenville shows where the freight depot was located in 1888, between Broad and Court Streets: Terminus in 1888 By 1913, a new freight depot and a passenger depot had been built near Falls Street and McBee Street, where the Suntrust Building is now: Passenger service was ended by the mid 1950s, and in 1973, the successor to the Charleston & Western Carolina, Seabord Coast Line Railroad Company (now CSX), sold off its downtown Greenville properties, including the de...

The Piedmont & Northern railway  or P&N, now CSX, was an interurban railway operating two disconnected lines in South Carolina and North Carolina and was chartered by James Duke of the Duke Power Company. The South Carolina railway line ran from Greenwood to Greenville, Taylors, Greer, and on to Spartanburg. The railway was electrified with 1500 volts DC, until 1954 when the conversion to diesel locomotives was completed and the electrification abandoned. The Enoree viaduct, built in 1913 , has been remarkably accident free except for that one derailment on February 9, 1919. A northbound train passing over the viaduct derailed at its highest point killing 4 passengers and injuring 1 employee and 23 passengers. An investigation into the accident  [ direct link ] concluded poor track conditions and a tie-bar set too low caused the derailment. An electrical substation used to be located downhill from the top of the Enoree viaduct supplying power for the Chick Springs...