Carolina Southern Railroad

The company in the late 1980s, as the Mid-Atlantic Railroad, began operating two former Atlantic Coast Line Railroad branch lines. One was a portion of the now abandoned ACL line between Wilmington, North Carolina, and Whiteville, North Carolina, and the other was operated by the Waccamaw Coast Line from Conway, South Carolina, to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Commodities carried by the railroad are hot carbon dioxide (bottled), coal, wood products, stone, grain, agricultural chemicals, and processed food. Accessible to the line are industrial parks in Whiteville, North Carolina as well as east of Conway South Carolina. The railroad connects with CSX Transportation at Mullins.

In November 1985, Horry County, South Carolina purchased the Seaboard System Railroad line from Conway to Myrtle Beach. In 10/1987 the company was leased to the Waccamaw Coast Line Railroad for operations. In September 1996, the county decided to sell, and Carolina Southern, which began leasing the railroad line from the county, was the only bidder. The county turned down Carolina Southern's three bids, and by 1998, the city of Myrtle Beach showed interest.

In 1987, the South Carolina Department of Transportation declared the section east of the Pine Island Bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway to be unsafe. The state spent $4.2 million to restore the 50-year-old bridge, which reopened in summer 1997, pending implementation of Amtrak High Speed Rail service connecting at Florence, S.C. The first train crossed the bridge June 22, 2001, but Carolina Southern, still leasing from the county, had to spend $900,000 to bring the section east of the waterway up to the standards needed for regular service.