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Canton & Carthage

Steam Locomotives Serving Sawmills

This Mississippi lumber hauler was incorporated on December 1, 1927, and took over the logging railroad running east from Canton to McAfee, east of Carthage, of the Pearl River Valley Lumber Co. Eventually it connected its namesake towns to the larger world via mainline connections at either end.

CCA

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cca_state The Canton & Carthage Railroad was originally constructed as a lumber hauling road by the lumber mill operation at Canton, Mississippi. In the 1930s and 40s, the road hauled logs up from Pearl River, Louisiana, to the Canton mill via trackage rights over the Gulf, Mobile & Ohio. Another logging railroad of the Appolonia Lumber Co. was operated by the CCA from River Junction to Pelahatchie, location of the Appolonia mill, which was another Denkmann-affiliated mill, like those at Canton and Burnside. By the 1950s, the little road had withdrawn to operating as a simple common carrier railroad to Carthage using its heavy 2-8-2 Mikado steamer #202 from the mill line. When the main mill closed, a group of Carthage businessmen bought the line and operated the Canton to Carthage route for another few years until it was approved for abandonment. The road dieselized with a centercab switcher, but the little Mississippi line closed down by 1960.

Canton & Carthage in Mississippi ran its large -- by Southern short line standards -- 2-8-2 from Canton to McAfee, representing something like 35.75 miles and maybe more if switching was totted up as well.