WWPCM08718
"Brown&Bigelow" (USA)
deck "Southern Railway",
1960s
1. WWPCM08718/01:
2. WWPCM08718/02:
HISTORY OF THE
SOUTHERN RAILWAY
The Southern Railway was the product of nearly 150 predecessor lines that were
combined, reorganized and recombined since the 1830s.
The nine-mile South Carolina Canal & Rail Road Co., Southern's earliest
predecessor line, was chartered in December 1827 and ran the nation's first
scheduled passenger service to be pulled regularly by a steam locomotive -- the
wood-burning "Best Friend of Charleston" -- out of Charleston, S.C., on
Christmas Day 1830. When its 136-mile line to Hamburg, S.C. was completed in
October 1833, it was the longest continuous line of railroad in the world.
As railroad fever struck other Southern states, networks gradually spread across
the South and even across the Allegheny Mountains. Charleston and Memphis, Tenn.,
were linked by 1857, although rail expansion halted with the start of the Civil
War.
Known as the "first railroad war," the Civil War left the South's railroads and
economy devastated. Most of the railroads, however, were repaired, reorganized
and operated again. In the area along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers,
construction of new railroads continued throughout Reconstruction.
Southern Railway was created in 1894, largely from the financially-stressed
Richmond & Danville system and the East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia Railroad.
The company owned two-thirds of the 4,400 miles of line it operated, and the
rest was held through leases, operating agreements and stock ownership.
Southern also subsequently controlled the Queen & Crescent Route (Alabama Great
Southern; New Orleans & Northeastern; Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific;
and for a time the Alabama & Vicksburg), and the Georgia Southern & Florida,
which were operated separately. Southern's first president, Samuel Spencer,
drew more lines into Southern's core system. During his 12-year term, the
railway built new shops at Knoxville, Tenn., and Atlanta, and purchased more
equipment. He moved the company's service away from an agricultural dependence
on tobacco and cotton and centered its efforts on diversifying traffic and
industrial development.
By the time the New Orleans & Northeastern (Meridian-New Orleans) was acquired
in 1916 under Southern's president Fairfax Harrison, the railroad had attained
the 8,000-mile, 13-state system that marked its territorial limits for almost
half a century.
The Central of Georgia became part of the system in 1963, and the former Norfolk
Southern Railway Co. (Norfolk-Charlotte) was acquired in 1974.
Southern and its predecessors were responsible for many firsts in the industry.
Its predecessor, the South Carolina Canal & Rail Road Co., was the first to
carry passengers, U.S. troops and mail on regularly-scheduled steam-powered
trains, and it was the first to operate at night. In 1953, Southern Railway
became the first major railroad in the United States to convert totally to
diesel-powered locomotives, ending its rich history in the golden age of steam.
From dieselization and shop and yard modernization, to computers and the
development of special cars and the unit coal train, Southern often was on the
cutting edge of change, earning the company its catch phrase, "The Railway
System that Gives a Green Light to Innovations."
