Carolina Special

The Carolina Special was a passenger train operated by the Southern Railway between Cincinnati, Ohio and the Carolinas. It operated from 1911 to 1968. It was the last passenger train to use the route of the Charleston and Hamburg Railroad, which, as the South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company, began operation in December 1830, as one of the oldest railroads in the United States, and, by 1833, operated a 136-mile (219 km) line to Hamburg, South Carolina, on the Savannah River, the country's longest at that time. All Southern Railway Pullman service to Charleston rode over that historic, if bucolic, route from Branchville to the port city.

The Southern Railway introduced the Carolina Special on January 22, 1911, between Cincinnati and Charleston, South Carolina via Asheville, North Carolina. The trip took 25 hours. The train's equipment included coaches, Pullman sleeping cars, an observation car and a dining car. Through-sleepers were later added to and from Chicago via the New York Central.

The Southern Railway discontinued the Carolina Special on December 5, 1968, which had by then dwindled to a coach-only remnant. This left only a remnant of the "Asheville Special" (discontinued August 8, 1975) as the last regularly scheduled passenger service for Asheville. Most of the line between Charleston and Aiken, South Carolina, has been lifted as there was little freight traffic generated by the historic but redundant route to justify its continued operation.

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