The Greenville and Western Railway is a

Class III railroad In the United States, railroad carriers are designated as Class I, II, or III, according to annual revenue criteria originally set by the Surface Transportation Board in 1992. With annual adjustments for inflation, the 2019 thresholds were US$5 ...

that operates from a point south of Belton to

Pelzer, South Carolina Pelzer is a town in Anderson County in South Carolina, United States, along the Saluda River. The population was 89 at the 2010 census. Government As of 2010 the town was governed by a mayor and four council members. The current Mayor is William ...

. Connections are made with

Pickens Railway Pickens Railway is a shortline railroad that has operated on two separate divisions in the Upstate Region of South Carolina: * Easley to Pickens: - abandoned and lifted in 2013. * Anderson, through Belton to Honea Path: Connections are ma ...

at Belton and

CSX CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of track. ...

at Pelzer. The railroad is a subsidiary of Western Carolina Railway Service Corporation.

History

The Greenville, Spartanburg and Anderson Railway was formed in 1910 to build an

interurban The Interurban (or radial railway in Europe and Canada) is a type of electric railway, with streetcar-like electric self-propelled rail cars which run within and between cities or towns. They were very prevalent in North America between 1900 a ...

railroad between its namesake cities. The Pelzer-Belton segment was built as part of its mainline from Greenwood to Greenville between 1910-1912. This line became part of the

Piedmont and Northern Railway The Piedmont & Northern Railway was a heavy electric interurban company operating over two disconnected divisions in North and South Carolina. Tracks spanned total between the two segments, with the northern division running from Charlotte, ...

in 1914. The P&N was merged into the

Seaboard Coast Line Railroad The Seaboard Coast Line Railroad was a Class I railroad company operating in the Southeastern United States beginning in 1967. Its passenger operations were taken over by Amtrak in 1971. Eventually, the railroad was merged with its affiliate lin ...

in 1969. Additional mergers occurred in 1983 with the

Seaboard System The Seaboard System Railroad, Inc. was a US Class I railroad that operated from 1982 to 1986. Since the late 1960s, Seaboard Coast Line Industries had operated the Seaboard Coast Line and its sister railroads—notably the Louisville & Nashville ...

merging with

Chessie System Chessie System, Inc. was a holding company that owned the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O), the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O), the Western Maryland Railway (WM), and Baltimore and Ohio Chicago Terminal Railroad (B&OCT). Trains operated und ...

, becoming CSX Transportation in 1986. On April 26, 2006 CSX sought to abandon the line from Belton to Pelzer. The abandonment was rejected by the

Surface Transportation Board The Surface Transportation Board (STB) of the United States is a federal, bipartisan, independent adjudicatory board. The STB was established on January 1, 1996, to assume some of the regulatory functions that had been administered by the Intersta ...

in August 2006 as the line was still profitable. 87 carloads had originated from or terminated at two online industries in 2005 in addition to overhead traffic from 10 customers on the Pickens Railway. On October 20, 2006 CSX sold the line to the current operator. Traffic surged to 1,872 carloads by 2009, primarily fueled by growth in ethanol traffic. Other commodities include scrap metal, limestone, fertilizer, feed products, plastics, and paper.

Motive power

GRLW currently operates two

EMD GP9 The EMD GP9 is a four-axle diesel-electric locomotive built by General Motors' Electro-Motive Division between 1954 and 1959. The GP9 succeeded the GP7 as the second model of EMD's General Purpose (GP) line, incorporating a new sixteen-cylind ...

locomotives numbered 3751 and 3752. GRLW Also operates 4

EMD GP30 The EMD GP30 is a four-axle diesel-electric locomotive built by General Motors Electro-Motive Division of La Grange, Illinois between July 1961 and November 1963. A total of 948 units were built for railroads in the United States and Canada ( ...

u locomotives, 4201-4204. Unit 3751 was formerly ECBR 6513 (2003–2007), formerly PTR 6513 (1987–2003) and originally B&O 6513 (1957–1987) - EMD frame no. 5519-3, serial no. 22987, built May 1957. Unit 3752 was formerly ECBR 6554 (2004–2008), formerly PTR 6554 (1987–2004) and originally B&O 6554 (1957–1987) - EMD frame no. 5519-44, serial no. 23028, built July 1957. 4201, branded for Western Carolina Railway's subsidiary Aiken Railroad, was built in May 1963 as ATSF 1270 (EMD GP30). Rebuilt and renumbered several times by ATSF, then owned by BNSF when ATSF merged with Burlington Northern, it was purchased by WCRS and originally plated GRLW until it was repainted in WCRS colors and branded with AIKR. 4202, also branded for AIKR, was built in May of '63, as ATSF 1275. It also went through the same process, staying with ATSF/BNSF until sold to WCRS. 4203, built as ATSF 1209 (GP30), built in May 1962, stayed with ATSF/BNSF before being sold to LTEX, and bought by WCRS for GRLW. 4204, built as ATSF 1251 in March 1963, came down the same path as 4203.

External links

HawkinsRails Greenville & Western page

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Greenville Western Railway South Carolina railroads Spin-offs of CSX Transportation Companies based in Greenville, South Carolina