ABOVE: The long trestle over the Little River was one of the scenic highlights of the Washington Branch, and still exists today. This line was later sold off by CSX to become the Georgia Woodlands Railroad in 1988, now operated by OmniTRAX. Fifty years ago, GP7 No. 1030 was taking loaded pulpwood flats south past a mill near Washington. RIGHT: Heavyweight combine No. 166 with its center baggage section was a relic of the Jim Crow era, and was retired in 1967. BELOW RIGHT: The conductor of the train made his “office” in a pair of coach seats inside combine No. 161. Decoration includes a Seaboard Coast Line calendar, a merger that took effect in 1967.


went on to lay out the Pennsylvania Railroad, including the famed Horseshoe Curve, and served as its president from 1852 to 1874 while making it into “the Standard Railroad of the World.” One of the little hidden treats for the Georgia Railroad & Banking Co. was the tax clause in the amended charter that capped the railroad from tax liability above one-half of 1 percent. This later became the subject of extensive litigation when Georgia thought it had made a bad deal — as indeed it had. The Georgia Railroad won every round, but — even though nothing in the charter required it — the opinion became fixed that so long as passenger service was provided over its lines the tax break of the original charter would stand.


The Mixed Train Era In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the


Athens line and the Macon line both switched their passenger service to mixed trains. The Monroe Branch lost its mixed trains to buses. As the 1960s opened, the Georgia Railroad was still showing fairly extensive mainline service. Trains 1 and 2 provided Pullman service connections between Augusta through New York over the Atlantic Coast Line.


54 JANUARY 2017 • RAILFAN.COM


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