The Best Friend of Charleston

The Great Trent River Raft Race

June 1982

Posted February 26, 2015

NEW BERN — The Best Friend of Charleston was the first commercial locomotive built entirely in the US. It took its first run on Christmas 1830 in Charleston, South Carolina for the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company. It was advertised as taking you “on the wings of wind of 15 to 25 miles per hour.” Six months later, she became the first locomotive to have her boiler explode.

This operating replica was built in 1928 by the Charleston Chapter of the National Railway Society. Norfolk Southern rebuilt the Best Friend replica during a five year loan back in 2005. It now lives in its own museum in Charleston.

I took these pictures in New Bern when the Best Friend replica ran courtesy trips across the Trent River trestle during the 1982 Great Trent River Raft Race.