Business View Magazine
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increased traffic between its port facilities and the rail-
roads that served them.
Jeff McWhorter, the President and CEO of today’s Pal-
metto Railways, picks up the narrative: “We originally
started with the Port Utilities Commission of Charles-
ton and the Port Terminal Railroad [two rail lines] which
were owned and operated by the Port. In 1969, the
Legislature decided to spin off the rail operations from
the Port Authority and they created the South Caro-
lina Public Railways Commission. Later, as a part of an
economic development effort in the ‘70s, we acquired
property and built a 15-mile railroad that we called the
East Cooper & Berkeley Railroad that was specifically
built for Amoco Chemical Company (now BP Chemical)
to locate here in South Carolina. We later built another
mile and a half to two miles off of that for Nucor Steel
in the early ‘90s.
“Under a restructuring of government that occurred in
the early ‘90s, the Commission was abolished and we
were rolled into the newly-created Department of Com-
merce and that’s where we remain, today, as a division
of the Department of Commerce. We operated three
different railroad companies – East Cooper & Berke-
ley (ECBR), the Port Utilities Commission of Charles-
AT A GLANCE
WHO:
Palmetto Railways
WHAT:
A division of the South Carolina Department
of Commerce, Palmetto Railways operates three rail-
road subdivisions
WHERE:
Headquarters in Charleston, SC
WEBSITE
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