Riding the Rails
Maybe you are like me. You are stopped at the railroad track waiting for the train to pass, Hurry up, Hurry up, you think! And then, some memories from your youth or something clicks and you begin to be mesmerized by the train cars passing by and the words to a song by Woody Guthie ring in your ear, “the rhythm of the rails.”
Or maybe you have been outside in the evening and heard the distant rumble of a train or the blast of the whistle as it approaches a crossing. Do you ever wonder where is that train? Where is it going?
Traveling by train is mostly something Americans did many years ago and died out when air travel became the chosen way to go.
Today, the trains you see or hear are freight trains. Recently, I took an 11-day trip in France and Italy traveling primarily by train and got a chance to appreciate rail travel, but we rarely, if ever, take a train anywhere in the United States.
In 1836, Atlanta was called Terminus, because it was the end of the line for a train out of Tennessee. Later the name was changed to Five Points which still exists, but now as the main hub for the MARTA train system. Lore has it that the name Five Points evolved when local farmers drove their cattle to a large spring in that area creating five paths.
Georgia Railroad president at the time suggested Atlantica-Pacifica, but it was shortened to Atlanta when the city was incorporated in 1847. By the 1850s, Georgia had the most rail miles of any southern state.
During Sherman’s March to the Sea, the Union Army took care of those railroad tracks, tearing up the tracks, heating the metal until it could be bent into a knot. The mangled tracks were affectionately called, “Sherman Bow Ties.” After the destruction, stagecoaches were again put into service as the rush of immigrants arriving at eastern ports pushed westward. The first passenger trains to come through Monticello was in 1887. Our closest passenger train depot now is near downtown Atlanta at Interstate 85 and Peachtree St.
Local resident, Kathy Abood, has many fond memories of riding trains. Starting as a young child, her family would take a yearly trip from their home in Philadelphia, Pa. to Tifton, to visit family members. “Trains were elegant, the dining cars served meals on china and had little silver sugar and creme sets and the waiters wore white gloves.” She continued to use trains up until a few years ago when visiting her brother, Fred, in Philadelphia.
On earlier trips, she remembers the long trip would take up to two days, sometimes the family would share a compartment with beds, “on a Pullman car.” Her favorite train was the “Washington Senator” that served the route from Washington, D.C. to New York.
One humorous memory she shared was a train trip to Tifton where they would change trains in Macon and ride on a real “cow-catcher” train the rest of the way. One time the train did encounter cows on the track and stopped while the train personnel ran the cows off the track. Kathy and her brother got off the train too and picked some scuppernong grapes from vines that grew along the track.
In Georgia today we have two main freight railroad companies, Norfolk Southern and CSX. You might see a Norfolk Southern train as it breezes through Monticello every day or a CSX train as it goes through Jackson and Covington.
There are still some train companies that have only a few miles of track, they are known as Short Lines. One such short line starts in Walton County and ends in Machen south of Shady Dale. At Machen, freight from the short line is loaded onto a Norfolk Southern train.
Of course, we have always been intrigued with railroads especially all of us whoever played the board game, Monopoly. Since the first Monopoly boards in 1903, four railroads have been represented, Reading, B&O (Baltimore & Ohio), Pennsylvania and Short Line.
The inventor of the game used the name of train companies that serviced Atlantic City, all but one, Short Line. Short Line was really the Shore Fast street car line, locals called it Short Line. Each year there is a Monopoly Championship. The winner wins $20,580, the exact amount the Monopoly bank holds.
Butts County resident, Gator Hodges, is a locomotive engineer instructor for CSX. As an instructor, he teaches the engineer candidates four weeks of classroom instructions and rule knowledge.
Then the candidates must be supervised for 26 weeks as they physically operate the locomotive. When not instructing, he works as an engineer on the Atlanta-Chattanooga line.
CSX Railroad was made by combining two main existing railroads, Chesapeake and Ohio, known as the Chessie Line from the “Sleep Like A Kitten” cat logo painted on all their engines, and Seaboard Railway. Both of these railroads had merged with many lines before CSX came to be. Their engines are painted blue and gold.
The other railroad locomotives that you will see in our area are owned by Norfolk Southern which was also made up of many smaller railroad companies with the main lines being Norfolk and Western railroad and Southern railways. The engines of Norfolk Southern are painted black and have some distinctive logos.
The name Norfolk Southern was shortened to “NS.” The “N” is made up of a horse head with a flowing mane and the front of the engine has a rearing horse. The company motto is “The Thoroughbred.” Train enthusiasts have nicknamed their “NS” symbol, “Catfish” since they think the flowing mane looks like the whiskers on a catfish.
You will notice as you watch the train cars pass by that many cars carry double-decker shipping containers which can also be transported via truck or ship.
One engine with maximum speed of up to 70 m.p.h. can pull between 100-120 cars which contain from 200-400 shipping containers. The fuel savings, safety and speed of service has many shippers turning to railroads. Economical electric engines have replaced diesel and coal-powered steam locomotives.
Railroads are still evolving. Now most trains only have two person crews, the engineer and the conductor, who must know literally every inch of their route, when to slow down, when to speed up, railroad crossings and their features, and emergency procedures as safety is number one. As more and more baby boomers retire, railroad jobs, highly desired, are being filled with younger workers, albeit fewer.
Cabooses are gone, the fireman job is gone. Still there are opportunities for qualified workers. The average age now of railroad workers is 35.
When the Panama Canal expansion is completed in 2015, railroads expect an increase in freight. Ports in the southeast are dredging deeper to accommodate the larger container ships that will be able to come from the West and Asia, passing through the Panama Canal instead of dropping their freight at western ports and being shipped to the east.
Railroad companies have responded by improving their infrastructure such as increasing the size of their tunnel openings enabling them to carry double-decker “piggy back” containers on more routes.
Georgia has two main railroad museums, Georgia State Railroad museum in Savannah and Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History in downtown Kennesaw, the star attraction being “The General,” a Civil War era locomotive.
Avid “railfans” or “trainspotters” as they are known are the ultimate train enthusiasts. They study the particulars of train cars, locomotives, really everything trains and watch the rails for their favorites. Public railfan platforms have been built in several areas around Georgia. In Folkston, you can see up to 60 trains a day coming through the “Folkston Funnel.”
Manchester, Ga., a CSX rail junction, has a platform. And Millen, Ga.’s platform was built to observe at a Norfolk Southern train junction for trains to Macon, Savannah and Augusta.
If your family would like to take a short trip on a train, you can travel to Blue Ridge, Ga to board a train for a 26-mile round trip along the scenic Toccoa River. Several other train trips are available around the state, see www.railga.com, look for “tourist lines.”
According to a recent article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Georgia is allotted $8 million per year from the federal budget for upgrading railroad crossings. There are approximately 5,000 public rail crossings in the state and 3,300 of them do not have gates or bells. The cost to upgrade a single crossing can range from $250,000 to $300,000.
According to Georgia DOT engineer, Michael Bolden, “at that rate, you are looking at 100 years” for state-wide upgrades.
In the meantime, everyone should take care when crossing railroad tracks and remember the old motto we learned many years ago, “Stop, Look and Listen.” And give a friendly wave as the train passes by, there could be someone working on that train that you know.
