CENTRAL — There is just something nostalgic and charming about small town festivals. Strolling down Main Street, munching on freshly popped kettle corn and listening to guitars strumming out classic songs while kids get their faces painted and beg for cotton candy.
This was the scene in Central on Saturday for the Railroad Festival: small towns at their best.
Most areas in the Upstate hold their own celebrations sometime in Spring: Pickens has the Azalea, Six Mile does the Issaqueena, Easley has their Spring Fling — but there’s something special about Central’s.
It’s not the biggest event around and you’ll see no “big name” headliners on the main stage — but you will hear some of the best music the Upstate has to offer, accompanied by the most adorable little cloggers and tap dancers you’ve ever seen.
Local artists displayed their wares while church volunteers raced to deflate the bouncy castles when the wind got a bit too gusty.
The star of the show — a massive Norfolk Southern diesel engine — chugged through town while kids lined up and down the tracks to wave at the conductor who blew the horn the whole way.
The town celebrates its history with the Railroad Festival. After all, the Central we know today would never have existed if the Atlantic and Richmond Air Line (which would become the Southern Railroad) hadn’t laid tracks through Pickens County 144 years ago.
Because the location of the future town was “centralized” between Atlanta and Charlotte, “Central Station” was born.
The rest, as they say, is history and even today, when you think of Central — you think “trains.”