Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1899-07-06
some INTERESTING HISTORY.
THE OLD SOUTH CAROLINA RAILROAD WAS
ONE OF THE FIRST IN UNITED STATES.
NOW OPERATED BY THE GREAT SOUTHERN.
Some Interesting Details About How "The
Old Reliable" was Operated Years Ago.


In this railway age the acquisition
of the old South Carolina Railroad
by the Southern, which again makes
that road the most important to the
city of Charleston, gives the early
history of the pioneer road, where
once tho motite power was the wind,
an especial interest.
While the South Carolina was not
the first railroad in tho world, and
possibly not tho first in the United
States, it was conspicuously first in
many particulars. 1t was the first
road ever constructed with q definite
plan of operating exclusively by
locomotive power; it was the first
i abroad to use an American-built
locomotives; it was tho first to use
Locomotives that were purely tho
product of American invention; it
was the first road in the world to
use an eight-whceled engine, and
that engine was the first eight
wheeler ever constructed, and was
devised by the same roads chief
engineer.
Although thore were tram roads in
America that are said to have ante
dated the South Carolina, still it is
doubtful if even that is the case, for
the South Carolina Company ante
dated by some years the genuine
railroad that was opened by that
company January Is, 1880, and sew
oral circumstances indicate that the
company operated tramway by
horses and sails before the locomo-
tive steam power was inauguratcd in
1880. Certain it is that the work on
this, the first real railroad in Amer
ica, was commenced in 1928.
Although tramways had been in
use in England for a century or two,
nothing much was accomplished until
Stephenson opened up the Manchcs-
ter and Liverpool Railway in 1929,
introducing thereon the steam loco
motive.
In his work entitled "Railroads-
Their Origins and Problems" Mr..
Charles Grancis Adams says there is
"somc reason for believing that the
South Carolina Railroad was the
first constructed in any country with
definite plan of operating it exc!u-
sively by locomotive steam power"
There is corroborativc evidence on
this point in the memoirs of IIoratio
Allen: "In September of 1929 Mr..
Allen became the chief engineer of
the South Carolina Railroad, the
construction Of which had then been
determined upon. On his recon-
mendation the gauge of the road was
made five feet. The road was COM
plctcd, and the cost was within his
original estimates, and when COM
pleted it was the longest railroad in
the world. At that carlv
date the South Carolina Railroad
Company had to decide whether the
motive power of the road should be
horses or locomotives. In a report
made to the company in November,
1929, MIR. Allen presented an csti-
mate of the cost of transportation by
horse power and by the locomotive
power. The estimate of cost of
locomotive power was based on
iacts obtained on the Stockton and
Darlington Railroad QEnglanD. The
result of that comparison was in
favor of locomotive power, and the
South Carolina Company adopted
the engineers recommendation to
use that power. But that action was
based, not on the experience of the
English road, but on the report of
the engineer, who hold that in the
future there was mo reason to expect
any material improvement in the
breed of horses, while, in my iudg-
mcnt, the man ia not living who
knows what the breed of locomotives
will place at command"
This report was made to full
meeting of the board, and the deci-
sion for locomotives was unanimous.
Engineer Allen says: "It was the
first action of this kind by any cor
poratc body in the world"
MIR. Adams is authority for the
statement that the South Carolina
road was opened January IS, 1880,
for he says: "On the 18th of Janu-
AIRY, 1881, exactly four months after
the final opening of the Manchester
and Liverpool road, the first ami
vcrsary of the South Carolina Rail
road was celebrated with due HONOR"
As to the first engine used on this
road, Mr.. Adams says: "a queer
looking machine c, the outline of which
was sufficient to prove that the in
vcntor owed nothing to Stephenson,