With all of the talk about the Rocket replicas, I was wondering if anyone on this board knows the details of the Best Friend of Charleston replicas. I know that the Best Friend used by Southern/NS for public relations now resides in Charleston, SC. I also know that some of its coaches and the special hauling cars are at the South Carolina RR Museum. So, where did the replica in Columbia, SC come from? Wasn't there a Best Friend that ran in the 70s at a museum called something like Wings 'n Rails?

And what about the coaches. How many are around? SCRM has some, the Best Friend Museum in Charleston must have some, and the Columbia museum has at least one.

Thanks,
Matt Helton

The Best Friend replica in the museum at Columbia, SC is the one from the former WINGS & WHEELS MUSEUM. That now-gone SC museum had a loop of track that the Best Friend replica operated on. The museum featured many vintage vehicles and aircraft. They also offered plane rides in a Ford Tri-Motor. This was back in the early or mid 1970's, if I remember right.

Regards,
Jim Robinson

The SOU replica was built by the Birmingham Shops in 1929. It includes the loco, a Berthen car with a crate hiding a gas engine, and two coaches. The entire train is now in Charleston. Charleston sent the loco (sans cars) to Railfair 99 in Sacramento.

The Wings & Wheels replica was built in 1972 by someone at W&W -- the sign in the State Museum in Cola gives his name, but I don't remember what it is. This train included the loco, a Berthen car, and four coaches. When Wings & Wheels went under, the collection was acquired for the then-abuilding State Museum. There was only room for two of the four coaches in the 3rd floor display in Cola (and that's tight, to be honest), so two were offered to SCRM. They were stored for several years at the Uniroyal plant in South Winnsboro.

The two specialized freight cars SOU used to haul their replica went to Charleston with the replica. Charleston didn't want them, so after a good deal of negotiation, SCRM got them. Getting the freight cars gave us a place to store our two BFOC coaches on-site, so they left Uniroyal and came to Rockton. We had them sitting out in the yard for a month or so between getting them from Uniroyal and putting them in the boxcar. We also used one of the coaches as a parade float a couple times, until we slightly damaged it getting it back on the track. After that, we decided it was too much of a risk using the car as a parade float so they haven't seen daylight since. Eventually we want to build a stub-end siding with a ramp so we can pull the cars out and display them.

BTW, there were a number of extra parts made for the W&W replica. We have these, also. There's a set of drivers, which we have chained to a section of panel track in Rion (you can see them from the train), as well as some frame parts, at least one complete set of rods, and a MESS of pillow block bearings. I've been wanting to inventory what we have with an eye to one day building a replica of the Phoenix (built from the remains of the BFOC after her explosion on June 17, 1831), but it's a low priority and I just haven't gotten to it.

One of our coaches has had the seats removed from one end. The bench that was removed is on the platform adjacent to the replica in Cola.

There are a couple differences between the two replicas. The SOU replica has springs and brakes. The loco has a mechanical hand brake and a truck pancake for air brakes on the coaches. The W&W replica in Cola doesn't appear to have any sort of springing and definitely doesn't have any sort of brakes on anything.

We got a few other items from W&W. The last stuff that hasn't been dispersed is the remains of a Plymouth and some disconnect logging trucks (which I'm told are 3' gauge -- I haven't seen this stuff so I don't know for sure). These are sitting near the Parks, Recreation & Tourism office in Cola and have been offered to SCRM, we just have to move them. We've already rescued the remains of a motor car and a few other small items, moving the rest of the stuff is an "as we have time" project.

From what I've read, the major difference in the two replicas are the boilers. The Southern replica has a conventional vertical firetube boiler and is coal fired. The Wings & Wheels replica used a Vapor-Clarkson oil-fired steam generator (as used on diesels to provide steam for heating passenger trains).

At one time (if not presently), the Southern replica had a gasoline engine in the "tender" that was used to provide power for backing up. The valve gear on the locomotive requires that the valves be manipulated manually to reverse the engine- there's no Johnson bar.

By the way, the Wings & Wheels museum (located in Santee, SC) used to be pretty neat. I went there a couple of times as a kid and flew there once with a friend to a "fly in" when I was 16 or 17. They had a pretty neat collection of planes and cars.

The SOU replica apparently got a new boiler in the '60s -- there's a plate on the boiler with a date of 1965, IIRC. Y'all don't know how bad I wanted to steam that thing up in Sacramento, but the boiler inspection expired in 1985.

The Berthen car behind the locomotive is NOT a tender. It's a flat car and was there because of a South Carolina law that required a flat car with a bale of cotton to be carried between a steam locomotive and passenger cars (no, it's no longer on the books, I've checked). The SOU more or less used the flat car as a tender, but the locomotive is actually a tank engine. The fuel bunker is just ahead of the vertical boiler and the water tank is a square box between the frames in the front.

Yes, there's a gas engine inside the crate. The W&W replica doesn't have this "feature." The gas engine also provided power for the air pump.

When I was a kid, the Southern brought the "Best Friend" to Scottsboro, Alabama, where I was visiting my grandparents. After showing much interest in the proceedings, I was offered a garden hose and the job of filling the water tank after each run down the siding. The engineer had a small promotional book about the Best Friend that he signed and gave to me at the end of the day, and which remains a treasured souvenir.

Alan Maples

When I was a kid, the Southern brought the "Best Friend" to Scottsboro, Alabama, where I was visiting my grandparents. After showing much interest in the proceedings, I was offered a garden hose and the job of filling the water tank after each run down the siding. The engineer had a small promotional book about the Best Friend that he signed and gave to me at the end of the day, and which remains a treasured souvenir.

Alan Maples

This thread came to light after a recent Steam Expo discussion



The gas engine was used to back the locomotive up. The valve gear on the engine is pretty primitive, and only works correctly in forward motion. It's been a long time, but I recall the engineer had two handles, one on each side, that he could use to manually adjust the valve gear. They worked like the johnson bar, and looked a bit like an injector handle, though they were longer.

Once the engine was moving forward, the engineer could hook them into some notches and the engine would run normally. However, the only way to back the engine up was to move the handles manually in sync with the pistons. It looks a bit like a rowing machine in action.

The engineer at Steam Expo 86 did it for a short distance, just to prove it was possible, but then he fired up the gas engine for the rest of the trip back to the display grounds, as it was something like a 5 mile run from the Grand Parade of Steam venue to the yard where the engines were displayed for the rest of the 10 days or so that Steam Expo was held. (Steam Expo did not run for the entire duration of the fair, which ran from Spring through early October.)

I am not certain whether the difficulty of backing the engine up was unique to the replica or was also part of the original design. I suspect it was a problem inherent in the original's design, rather than a flaw in the replica, but I don't know that for certain.

Didn't the Southern RR one also operate at the 1987 NRHS convention in Roanoke...

Bob H

Speaking of Wings & wheels (Santee, SC), I visited the place in mid-1973 on the second date with my future wife. It was a neat place but apparently the Best Friend train wasn't running the day we visited.

One item that has always stayed in my mind was the Dixie Flyer automobile on display in the large building. Dixie Flyer or Dixie Car Co. was the manufacturer's name and was located in Louisville, KY. There was a decorative badge on the front of the radiator that read: "It costs a little more, but it's made in Dixie!"

Huzzah!

The Best Friend was displayed at the 1955 centennial celebration for Morristown,Tn. It was not under steam but was displayed on panel track at the depot. There used to be a video of this on youtube but the owner has pulled it and left youtube.

The Best Friend that belonged to Charleston, SC is now in the hands of NS once again. They removed it and have placed it and the coaches on display in Atlanta, GA at the David Goode building in Midtown. They have a very large window that it sits in so you can see it from the street.

A couple of years in Atlanta now.