A little over a year ago I was charged with the task of creating a railfan guide for the State of South Carolina. Well I’m pleased to report that I have completed the “first edition” and my boss has reviewed it. We will now be making copies of it to send to all nine state welcome centers.
The guide is broken down into four sections, which cover four of the state’s 10 tourism regions. Those regions are: Santee-Cooper country, Capital City (Columbia-Newberry area), Old 96 District (Abbeville, Edgfield, Laurens and Greenwood Counties) and the Upcountry (Occonee, Pickens, Greenville and Spartanburg Counties).
The sections are also sequenced so that they follow Interstate Highway corridors. Currently, you can use the guide to find railfaning locations and railroad-related attractions along I-85 for it’s entire length and I-26 from the NC state line to Branchville.
I will continue to add to the guide until it covers all ten regions. I hope that you can find this useful as you travel in Palmetto State.
When will they be in the welcome centers? Thanks for taking on this project.
This sounds interesting, will any of it be online?
I’m not sure if your state DOT has a good rail map online, but there are a couple of maps at the end of this report-
http://www.scdot.org/inside/multimodal/pdfs/RailInventory.pdf
Pretty interesting project! Should make a very enjoyable and helpful reference document.
The only other state, from which this type of rail facilities map I have seen was issued from The Georgia DOT. Last one I saw was issued in 2000. It was a complete representation of all the lines in Georgia. Both documents would really make railfanning in South Carolina, and Georgia helpful and interesting. The only fly in the ontment might be the official schizophrenia that has followed 9/11 and caused these types of maps to be ceased to public issuence. Is there a rail map for North Carolina, as well?
Hey Sam,
I think about 30 state DOTs have rail maps online. Iowa is probably the best.
This is the North Carolina map-
http://www.bytrain.org/quicklinks/pdf/nc_railmap_10.pdf
Dale;
THANK YOU! [8D]
You got me to looking at some stuff I had only previously considered, but not rally investigated!
You da Man,. Dale![bow]
Found this while looking around (Ga. State RR Map): http://www.dot.state.ga.us/maps/Documents/railroad/Georgia_Rail_Map_2004.pdf
This is the link to Ga DOT and has links to their other RR Maps ( Hot-lanta, included!)
http://www.dot.state.ga.us/maps/Pages/Railroad.aspx
How anout this for Carl and Paul and the others in the Illinois area form IDOT:
http://www.dot.state.il.us/officialrailmap.pdf
and many more by ‘googling’ : www. Satate DOT rialroad maps
South Carolina’s road maps do a pretty good job of showing the railroads. In fact, I have one on which I highlighted the major corridors. It’s a handy tool for working on the guide.