Pickens and the Great Pumpkins

Pickens and
the Great
Pumpkins
Venerable General Electric U18B locomotives
power this South Carolina short line
Story and photos by Steve Smedley
A
pouring rain streaks the
red-brick buildings lining
“the tunnel,” a local term
for the low-level railroad
track through downtown
Anderson, S.C. On an unseasonably
cool October 2011 day, locomotive
engineer Buck Fullbright slowly powers up a rare breed of General Electric
locomotive: Pickens Railway No.
9508, a pumpkin-colored U18B.
Pickens holds title to eight former
CSX (originally Seaboard Coast Line)
U18Bs acquired in 2000 when the
South Carolina short line took over
CSX and Norfolk Southern branches
around Anderson and Belton. In the
waning years of their CSX careers,
the bantam GEs had been relegated
to work-train service, and came to
Pickens dressed in the solid-orange
CSX maintenance-of-way paint
scheme that they retain to this day.
Packing an 1,800 hp, 8-cylinder
GE 7FDL-8 prime mover under its
hood, measuring just less than 55
feet in length, and weighing in at a
nominal 219,000 pounds, the U18B
debuted in 1973. Designed as a
branchline road-switcher, the model
sold just 163 copies, 105 of them to
Seaboard Coast Line.
SCL took 68 of its U18Bs on
reconditioned EMD Blomberg
trucks, while 37 came on GE FB2
trucks. A dozen of the FB2-trucked
units were customized lightweight
locomotives, tipping the scales at just
111,000 pounds. Only four other GE
customers bought U18Bs: Mexico’s
Nacionales de Mexico, 45; Maine
Central, 10; Texas Utilities, two; and
Providence & Worcester, one. Nearly
40 years later, few of the bantam
U-boats survive. The Pickens’ eight are
the last significant concentration of
operating U18Bs in the U.S.
Fullbright ratchets the throttle
forward and the 9508 sounds off,
surely rattling storefront windows.
Passing beneath the Main Street
bridge, the rap of the 8-cylinder
FDL diesel engine and turbocharger
Approaching “the tunnel” in downtown
Anderson, S.C., Pickens U18B No. 9508
leads the Belton Job out of town on a rainy
Monday in October 2011.
40 LOCOMOTIVE
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2012
Treading lightly on 85-pound rail, Pickens
Railway U18B No. 9507 tiptoes out of Belton
with a single car billed to the Packaging
Corporation of America plant at Honea Path.
conjures a high school math teacher
who once used a No. 2 pencil and a
single sheet of paper to get her sleepy
student to pay attention. Bap bap
bap bap bap bap! In a mechanical
cacophony of diesel exhaust and
squealing steel wheels, the train heads
home to Belton.
Meanwhile, the “Anderson
Job,” with engineer David Corliss
and conductor Daniel Garrett on
U18B No. 9504, works the Glenn
Street yard, sorting cars the Norfolk
Southern local left behind. They’ll
depart southward with several loads
of carbon black billed to Pickens’
largest customer, the Michelin North
America tire plant just south of town
on the Anderson line. Pickens crews
and their bright orange GEs repeat the
ritual most Monday, Wednesday, and
Friday mornings.
Working under a silver tarp to
protect him from the rain, contract
mechanic William Purdy changes
out the water pump of No. 9500.
Its meet with the Anderson Job accomplished, No. 9507 heads for Belton and interchange
with the Greenville & Western. The bright orange provides great visibility.
“These GEs don’t have as much room
as EMDs, they are pretty well full,”
Purdy says, sitting on an upturned
five-gallon lube-oil bucket and biting
on the stick of a sucker as he contorts
his body to loosen large bolts. An
EMD gauge for the 9500’s water
temperature illustrates the “parts is
parts” working-man mindset of this
short line.
“These are big engines; you ’gotta
have a crane to lift most everything,
Passing the ruins of the Anderson Cotton
Mills (built in 1888 and burned in 2007),
No. 9500 heads north in April 2011.
but whatever’s wrong we can usually
fix it,” Purdy says. “There are miles
and miles of wiring in one of these,”
he adds, “but it’s all in pretty good
shape, and they were well-maintained
when we got them.”
Rooted in history
The original Pickens Railroad
was chartered in December 1890,
building a line from Pickens to Easley,
S.C. In the early 1920s, the Singer
Manufacturing Co. built a large
cabinet manufacturing plant on the
Pickens, eventually becoming the
line’s largest customer. In addition, the
Appalachian Lumber Co. established
several logging operations, with some
of the wood being used by Singer,
which eventually purchased the
railroad in 1939. With the decline of
manufacturing in the late 1950s, the
original Pickens Railroad changed
hands several times. Now known
as the Pickens Railway, the line is
privately owned by Chip and Nancy
Johnson of Johnson Railway Services
of Cornelia, Ga.
Today, the city of Pickens is
the home shop of locomotive
remanufacturer Chattahoochee
Locomotive Co. The locomotive
rebuilder uses the original 8-mile line
to reach the outside world through
an interchange with the Norfolk
Southern at Easley. At present,
locomotives moving to and from the
Chattahoochee shop are the only
traffic on the original Pickens line.
In 1991, Pickens leased the
Belton-Honea Path line from Norfolk
Southern through its Thoroughbred
Shortline Program. The BeltonAnderson segment was added in 1994,
along with former CSX trackage in
Anderson that had once belonged to
The GE plate on No. 9500’s turbocharger
bears evidence of its CSX lineage.
42 LOCOMOTIVE
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2012
predecessor Charleston & Western
Carolina. Pickens maintains an
interchange with NS at Anderson,
while CSX traffic is handed off to short
line Greenville & Western at Belton,
and interchanged to CSX at Peizer.
With six employees and 27 total
track-miles, the Pickens easily handles
its traffic base with the five currently
operable U18Bs, says General Manager
Donnie Sims. A 34-year veteran of the
short line, who started as a switchman
in 1977, Sims is sold on the
antiquated GEs’ overall performance.
“We’ve got five running right now,”
Sims says, “with a goal of getting a
couple out-of-service units back to
running order to be able to have twolocomotive assignments when traffic
warrants it. These are great shortline
engines, very fuel-efficient; they use a
third as much fuel as an EMD.”
“We still have a Baldwin,” Sims
notes, referring to the VO660 that
dieselized the line in 1947. “No. 2 ...
I could go start it today if I wanted
to; we stored it serviceable.” The old
Eddystone product sits outside the
headquarters building in Pickens.
All operating personnel are crosstrained, sharing conductor and
engineer responsibilities. One day in
the life of this neighborly short line
might see employees changing out
a broken rail, the next day running
a train. A large sickle hangs against
9508’s front bulkhead. “We use those
if we have a branch across the tracks
and need to get it moved,” Sims says.
Sims is proud of his employees as
well as his employer, and he is sold not
only on the performance of the stubby
GEs’ performance, but the bright
orange paint they brought with them
from CSX. “We’ve repainted some
since we got them. I will tell you that
seeing those headlights coming down
the track is one thing, but that orange
really gets people’s attention. As far as
I’m concerned, it’s a plus for safety.”
“This part of the year, all the punch
lines come out about the pumpkins,”
says engineer Fullbright, referring
to the Halloween dress of the “Baby
Boats.” “They’re extremely tough …
just a good workhorse engine and low
maintenance,” he says. “This baby was
born in 1973!” 2
STEVE SMEDLEY is a photojournalist for The Pantagraph newspaper in
Bloomington, Ill. He, wife Donna, and
son Sam live in nearby Atlanta, Ill.
Creeping through a tunnel of trees (above
right), No. 9507 brings the Belton Job
into Honea Path in April 2011. William
Purdy (right) changes the water pump
on No. 9500.