After over ten years of planning and fundraising and a year of construction, the railroad depot has been replaced on the original site.  It looks very much like it did between 1899 and 1954, but using modern insulating and building materials, which will make a more efficient building.  The original frame edifice would have been difficult to heat and cool by today’s standards.

The grand opening took place on Saturday, September 18th, 2010.  The City of Aiken’s Visitor’s Center and Railroad Museum occupies the facility and is also available for events such as meetings and catered affairs.  As fundraising continues, the interiors of the two dining railroad cars will be refurbished and made available for the public to rent for events. 

The second, or mezzanine floor, is open in the center giving first floor visitors a beautiful view to the third level cupola.  Nine dioramas depict the towns along the original South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company right of way.  This railroad became the first designed steam powered commercial railroad in the United States and the longest railroad in the world.  The dioramas accurately show Charleston, Summerville, St. George, Branchville, Denmark, Blackville, Aiken’s freight station, Aiken’s passenger depot, and Hamburg, near North Augusta, as they were in the year 1916.  These dioramas are done in the familiar HO scale.  The dioramas are complimented by interactive displays depicting railroad history.

There is also a three and one quarter inch gauge toy model of the Aiken-Augusta Special which brought northerners from New York to Aiken (a 30-hour trip) during the early part of the last century.  The freight station was bustling, with as many as 1,000 horses per year arriving in the fall and returning to New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York and New England in the spring. 

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