The Ware Shoals Railroad was a shortline connecting the town of Ware Shoals, South Carolina

Ware Shoals, South Carolina

Ware Shoals is a town in Abbeville, Greenwood, and Laurens counties in the U.S. state of South Carolina, along the Saluda River. The population was 2,363 at the 2000 census....

, to the Southern Railway

Southern Railway (US)

The Southern Railway is a former United States railroad. It was the product of nearly 150 predecessor lines that were combined, reorganized and recombined beginning in the 1830s, formally becoming the Southern Railway in 1894...

 and Piedmont and Northern Railway

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, to Gastonia, North Carolina, including a three-mile ...

 (later Seaboard Coast Line) at Shoals Junction, South Carolina, a distance of 5.2 miles (8.4 km).

History

The train carried goods to and from the textile mill located in Ware Shoals, South Carolina

Ware Shoals, South Carolina

Ware Shoals is a town in Abbeville, Greenwood, and Laurens counties in the U.S. state of South Carolina, along the Saluda River. The population was 2,363 at the 2000 census....

, but its main use was the transportation of coal. The railroad was built in 1905 by the Southern Railway, which supplied locomotives to operate the line with during the steam era. By the late 1950s, the railroad dieselized with a single ex-Southern General Electric 44-ton locomotive, numbered 1955.

The railroad ceased operations in 1985 when the textile mill begin to curtail operations. Trackage was pulled up in 1987.