For you railroad buffs

[ol' chebby]

Dave and I hiked to Twin Falls, in Pickens S.C. This is a remote and small waterfall, but a nice hike with cool scenery.

The cool thing about the Falls is that at the top is the ruins of an old railroad. From what I have found, it was the Appalaichin Logging Co., defunct in the 20s to 30s. It must have been an enormous flood that washed the rails down river.
Here is Dave with the pile of rails at the top of the falls..

If you follow the trail, it follows the railbed pretty closely. From time to time you come across holes drilled into the rock, some of them with serious metal bars sticking out, usually bent downstream. These must be the anchors for the trestles alsong the creek. There are sporadic, bent rails laying in the river and on the banks. The really neat thing is that 2 miles upriver you come to 2 rails running through the woods...

Just something you don't see every day.

 

[Wolf]

wow nice pics... thanks for sharing. I love back in the woods pics like that. sweet old rail too!!! man God does beautiful work doesn't he!!!

 

[Chiro]

Scrap metal heaven. Bring a torch and person capable of heavy lifting along with your truck. Easy money at the scrap yard, plus doing a service by prettying up the landscape.

Andy

 

[booger]

piece of that rail is also good around the shop too , to be used with a BFH !!! have a full rail down on our farm, pull it around wit the tractor sometimes to level the ground on pastures.

 

[ol' chebby]

That rail ain't coming out. The rails above the falls are about 1/4 mile hike, then a verticle hill scramble. The rails in the woods are 2 miles in. I rather like them where they lay. It isn't often that you see something like tht.

 

[Kens 50 PU]

Very cool indeed. I'm a self-profused foamer! (slang for rail fan!) I can visualize that line connecting to a Southern Railroad mainline (now part of the NS family), maybe part of the old Cheasey system. I'm sure that it was a narrow gauge line with Shay locomotives. You think a 3/4 ton AD with a granny gear could climb a brick wall? Shay locos, with their unique gearing would not even labor scaling the App's. Thanks for the the pics dude!

 

[Zig]

Beautiful!

Can you imagine how incredible the view was from the old line that ran these tracks?
Thanks for the pictures!
BTW, did you pack some fishing poles with you?

 

[ol' chebby]

It actually appears to be a standard rail line. As far as I have ben able to tell, it was a logging rail. I often imagine what a view it must have been skirting the river like that. I don't know where the rail begins, but it seems to continue after the falls, where there appears to have been a trestle, or a major washout. You can see where it would have continued on around a hillside. The trail follows the roadbed almost completely. You can hike through a few cuts, about 5 feet deep, and there is evidence of a road or trail above in one spot.

http://www.mountaintravelguide.com/Waterfalls/southcarolina/pickens/TwinFalls.htm

http://www.geocities.com/soho/8933/eastatoe.htm

You were right about the shay locomotives.....
Found these engine numbers under a registry..
http://www.shaylocomotives.com/data/owner/own-a.htm

855 Appalachian Lumber Co., Pickens, SC
1558 Appalachian Lumber Corp., #2, Pickens, SC
2384 Appalachian Lumber Corp., Pickens, SC
2373 Appalachian Lumber Corp., Pickens, SC
1633 Appalachian Lumber Corporation, #1, Pickens, SC

The line went to Pickens, was bought by the singer sewing machine co.

Finally found some history of the flood:

It didn’t take long for the New Yorkers to learn about
the basic religious nature of Southerners. At first, the
Appalachian Lumber Company conducted its logging
operations every day of the week in spite of the local
custom to observe the Sabbath as a day of rest. One
particular Sunday, an engine broke down, and the
problems they met to restore it to service were so severe
that the Company never again operated on Sundays.
Appalachian Lumber Company went bankrupt in June
1929 due, in part, to a torrential rainstorm that washed
out many of the train trestles. Logging in the remote
mountain areas came to an abrupt halt. Today, as you walk
along the abandoned railroad beds, you frequently come
upon rails, sometimes partly buried, sometimes partly
spanning a creek here the rail is bent like a pretzel from the
force of the rain-swollen stream. And, you can’t help but
be amazed at the engineering and construction feats of
excavation, achieving a constant grade, building the trestles
over deep ravines, and bringing in the rails themselves, all
in extremely remote and mountainous terrain.
Many years after the rail logging operations were
abandoned, the rails were salvaged, hauled out of the
mountains, and sold for scrap. During World War II,
George Bowie Jr., who grew up here, was serving as a
soldier in the military occupation of a Japanese island
and came upon a piece of rail which had “Pickens
Railroad” molded on its side!

from this link:http://www.dnr.sc.gov/managed/wild/jocassee/newsletters/jocvol3no2.pdf

 

[cowboy357]

Great pics ol' chebby , Thanks for the links , as well as the history. Very interesting. Bob

 

[vwnate1]

Rail Fans

I'm no ' Foamer ' (well , maybe about old Babbit Pounders) but I am a Rail Fan (SP) .

THANK YOU for this fun and informative post ! .

I'd not take those rails out either , they're not hurting a thing lying there going back to Gaiea .