Re: this piece from Flimsies: Does the Port Royal line have much potential as a scenic railway, or is is mostly industrial? Obviously, the newspaper doesn't have much clue of what railroads do, with its "dinner car" statement. Who did this line belong to previously?http://www.islandpacket.com/news/local/story/5309582p-4812827c.html

The line has 26 miles of track between Port Royal and Yemassee. I've been there in the 1990s; it has its South Carolina Lowcountry charms, rambling through marshland and scrub woods as well as some back yards and dirt roads, as well as some highway-side running in Beaufort and industrial/back-street running in Port Royal. Nice scenery, tasty shrimp, and hungry mosquitoes--skip the open cars.The problem isn't that it's industrial--the problem is that it isn't industrial enough. The major reason the railroad has stayed in existence all these years is to serve the state-run port at Port Royal; indeed the SC Ports Authority had a state subsidiary running that line. The port has been all but dead for years now, and the RR service was formally abandoned by the state earlier this year. The region is a booming tourist area--Hilton Head Island, Savannah, Charleston, and Beaufort are all right there, and Beaufort has as much charm as any of those. In addition, there's the nearby Parris Island Marine Air Station and training camp--which, as I'm told, graduates a new class every six or eight weeks, which floods the restaurants there with graduation dinners with families.My suspicions, based on my experience with the area, is that a competent, well-run excursion/dinner-train operation COULD make a go of it, IF it did not have to carry ALL the overhead costs of the rail line. After all, how did the Horry County RR in the Myrtle Beach area make a go of it? As this line sees no freight and there's little to no chance of a profitable freight operation, I don't see that happening in Port Royal. My ultimate prediction is that the line will become a rail trail from Yemassee to the northwest edge of Beaufort near Merritt Field airport; it's maybe 50/50 that they can push the trail through Beaufort to Port Royal, although the Port Royal stretch would make a nice waterfront trail.....

Over a year later:

http://stb.dot.gov/FILINGS/all.nsf/d1ba ... 218189.PDF

Beaufort Railroad, a subsidiary of the SC Division of Public Railways, is filing with the STB to apparently reactivate this line on an "as required" basis. Anyone have any ideas why?

Anyone still reading? Here's more:

http://www.beaufortgazette.com/local_news/story/6318718p-5508738c.html