A History of Georgia Railroads by Robert C. Jones

Author:Robert C. Jones [Jones, Robert C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Transportation, Railroads, History, Pictorial, General, United States, State & Local, South (AL; AR; FL; GA; KY; LA; MS; NC; SC; TN; VA; WV)
ISBN: 9781439660126
Google: KTBrDgAAQBAJ
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Published: 2017-03-20T15:55:32+00:00

The Georgia Midland & Gulf Railroad shops in Columbus, Georgia (upper right-hand corner), 1886. Courtesy Library of Congress.

In 1895, the GM&G entered receivership. The next year, J.P. Morgan purchased the GM&G and renamed it the Georgia Midland Railway. The line was quickly leased to the Southern Railway and was eventually absorbed by the Southern Railway. In 1982, the Georgia Midland Railway became part of Norfolk Southern.

GEORGIA NORTHERN RAILWAY

One of the last individual entrepreneurs to build a successful mainline railroad in Georgia was James Pidcock Sr. He arrived in Georgia in 1892 to visit his son, Charles. He soon asked his other three sons to join him from New Jersey to start up a timber operation. As a result, they created the town of Pidcock (between Thomasville and Quitman). As the stands of timber to be cut got farther and farther away from Pidcock, a logging railroad was built going twelve miles north of Pidcock to Hollis, Georgia. Around this time, the Boston & Albany Railroad of Georgia was chartered, but the line soon went bankrupt.

On February 26, 1893, the Pidcock’s timber railroad reached Moultrie in the north, with Charles Pidcock Sr. as the engineer of locomotive no. 4. The Pidcocks had purchased this locomotive from the defunct Rockaway Valley Railroad in New Jersey (for which the elder Pidcock had once been an officer).

On November 22, 1894, the Pidcocks bought the bankrupt Boston & Albany Railroad of Georgia and renamed it the Georgia Northern Railway. This meant that they now had a common-carrier charter (the Pidcock Railroad was for hauling timber, not people).

By 1894, the Pidcocks had reached Doerun, Georgia (about forty-eight miles from Pidcock). In 1899, James Pidcock Sr. died.

By 1901, the Georgia Northern Railway neared Albany, Georgia (sixty-five miles). In 1904, the Southern terminus of the GN was relocated to Boston, Georgia, from Pidcock, Georgia. The same year, the GN was completed to Albany, where a steel bridge had been built across the Flint River by the Pidcocks.

In 1910, the Pidcocks bought the Flint River & Northeastern Railroad (Pelham to Tichnor, near Doerun, Georgia). Things on the expansion front were pretty quiet for the next few years, until 1922, when the Pidcocks bought the Georgia, Ashburn, Sylvester & Camilla Railway. In 1939, the Pidcocks acquired the Georgia, Southwestern & Gulf Railroad (Albany to Cordele, about thirty-nine miles). In 1946, the Flint River & Northeastern line was abandoned.

In May 1966, the Southern Railway acquired the Georgia Northern.

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