The South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company was a railroad in South Carolina that operated independently from 1830 to 1844. One of the first railroads in North America to be chartered and constructed, it provided the first steam-powered, scheduled passenger train service in the United States. Chartered under act of the South Carolina General Assembly of December 19, 1827, the company operated its first 6-mile (9.7 km) line west from Charleston, South Carolina in 1830. The railroad ran scheduled steam service over its 136-mile (219 km) line from Charleston, South Carolina, to Hamburg, South Carolina, beginning in 1833. Some sources referred to the railroad informally as the Charleston and Hamburg Railroad, a reference to its end points, but that was never its legal name. In 1839, The Louisville, Cincinnati and Charleston Railroad Company, which had built no track of its own, gained stock control of The South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company, which continued to operate under that name. In 1844, The South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company merged with the Louisville, Cincinnati and Charleston Railroad Company. The merged company changed its name to South Carolina Railroad Company under an act of the South Carolina legislature dated December 19, 1843.
History With the advent of cotton cultivation in the early 19th century, the relatively remote South Carolina upcountry enjoyed a vast expansion in the value of its agricultural produce. Overland transport by wagon was slow and expensive, so this produce tended to go to Augusta, Georgia, then down the Savannah River to the seaport at Savannah, Georgia. The SCC&RR Company was chartered on December 19, 1827 (amended January 30, 1828) to divert this commerce to Charleston by means of connections to Columbia, Camden and Hamburg. Despite its novelty the project was pursued by its Charleston leaders with aggressive method, public demonstrations encouraging support for the daring concept of a steam-driven railroad. Under William Aiken as the first president, six miles (9.7 km) of line were completed at Charleston in 1830. However, construction was delayed and expenses increased by a shortage of labor, due to the high death rate of slaves leading to a reluctance to lease slave labor to the project by plantation owners. Messrs. Gray & Co., the principal firm of contractors, turned to importing a large number of white laborers from the North and from Europe. The first run over the entire 136-mile (219 km) line was celebrated in October 1833. Elias Horry had become president of the company in 1831, and was responsible for building what was then the longest railway in the world. The line was a commercial success despite price competition against riverborne traffic and later railroad projects in Georgia. Its initial cost of $951,148 was doubled by early way improvements, at that price still quite economical. This satisfying position blew up in the course of an overly ambitious overmountain expansion under the name of the Louisville, Cincinnati and Charleston Railroad. It never reached the Ohio River at Cincinnati, although it reached Columbia, South Carolina in 1840, Camden, South Carolina in 1848 and Atlanta, Georgia in 1853. The SCC&RR successfully weathered the Panic of 1837 and overhanging debt from the busted LC&CRR, but not without a retrenchment that continued through the next decade. South Carolina legislators merged the two companies' charters in 1844.
Early engineering
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