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Georgia & Florida Railroad Album by Albert Langley Jr Soft Cover 2004 56 Pages
Georgia and Florida Railroad Album by Albert Langley Jr
Soft Cover
Copyright 2004
56 Pages
CONTENTS
History Of The Georgia & Florida 2
Greenwood-Augusta-Midville-Douglas 10
Douglas-Nashville-Madison 17
Moultrie Branch 19
Broxton & Millen Branches 20
McAdoo-Tennille 21
Georgia & Florida Motive Power22
Steam Motive Power 24
Diesel-Electric Motive Power 34
Inspection Cars 41
Georgia & Florida Passenger Service 42
The Coach Yard47
Freight Car Potpourri 50
Cabooses52
Acknowledgements - Bibliography 56
Maps Inside Back Cover
While most railroads in North America experienced periods of "boom or bust", there is some justification in saying that the Georgia & Florida Railway never experienced a true "boom". The G&F was plagued with financial constraints throughout its history. Indeed, had it not been for its dedicated officers and employees, the Georgia & Florida might well have been abandoned early on. As an example, its agents were well respected for their ability to secure every car load possible from shippers who might otherwise have dispatched their goods via any number of shorter, faster routes. Likewise, it was a family oriented road with sons following fathers and grandfathers in train, maintenance of way and other services. Where larger roads could boast of heavy ballasted right-of-ways, modern motive power and high speed trains, the Georgia & Florida offered personal service.
Although the G&F qualified as a class one railroad and at one time was over 500 miles in length (by 1961 it had retrenched to 321 miles), its continual financial struggle relegated it to somewhat of a short line operation in practice. Comprehensive maintenance of the right-of-way was almost impossible during many of its years of receivership. While its roster could boast of a few new steam locomotives, for the most part its motive power came from the second hand market. Thus, one could find a fleet of ex-Florida East Coast light 4-6-2's on the same roster that boasted ex-Buffalo, Rochester & Pittsburgh 2-8-0's and former New Orleans Great Northern 4-8-2's. When financing was finally found for new Electro-Motive diesel-electrics, the Georgia & Florida had to settle for solid axle bearings rather than roller bearings for the sake of cost.
In the grand scheme of new railroad construction in the United States, the Georgia & Florida Railway was a late comer. Many major railroad systems had already been built before the G&F was even conceived. Thus, throughout its history, the road suffered somewhat from having to settle for leftovers. Its territory served an agricultural economy upon which it was forced to depend. Many of the towns it served were small, even miniscule. Thus there was a limited amount of industrial revenue from which it could draw. Although it heavily promoted agriculture through demonstration projects on modern farming techniques and bulletins on "Agricultural Opportunities Along The Georgia & Florida Railroad", agriculture alone could not adequately support the road.
Equally, as a late comer, in many cases the G&F was forced to accept less than desirous gradients because some other road had already staked its claim to the "easy" route. This proved to be a costly operational problem throughout the road's history. As an example, coming out of the Savannah River Valley at Augusta, there was the formidable Hephzibah Hill to the south and the equally daunting North Augusta Hill to the north on the Greenwood Extension. This author recalls one G&F engineman remarking that "if you didn't have a good fire laid and the engine popping when you left Augusta, well, there just wasn't any need to go".
The Georgia & Florida Railway was assembled by John Skelton Williams. Mr. Williams was the son of a Richmond, Virginia banker who had previously gained fame for forming the Seaboard Air Line Railway between 1895 and 1900. The formation of the Georgia & Florida was accomplished in a similar manner as that used for the Seaboard. In both instances, John Skelton Williams' method was to merge several existing small railroads and then link them together by constructing connecting lines. In the case of the G&F, Williams was able to accomplish this with only about eighty-five miles of new construction.
In 1906, Williams proposed a railroad extending from Columbia, South Carolina southward through Augusta, Georgia to Madison,
Florida to a connection with the Seaboard Air Line Railway and thence to an unnamed deep water port on the Gulf Of Mexico. The same vision encompassed a secondary route which would branch off the G&F main line at some point south of Augusta, passing through Statesboro, Georgia, and thence to the Atlantic port city of Savannah, Georgia via the Savannah & Statesboro Railway. (The Savannah & Statesboro extended eastward from Statesboro to Cuyler, Georgia where it connected with the Seaboard Air Line.) Trackage rights were to be secured over the Seaboard from Cuyler to gain Savannah.
Between 1906 and 1907, John Skelton Williams, along with a Baltimore banker, J. William Middendorf, acquired and rebuilt four short line railroads to form the basis of the Georgia & Florida Railway. The general offices of the new company were established in Augusta. During 1907-1908, these offices were briefly relocated to Douglas, Georgia but were moved permanently back to Augusta in November 1909. (Perhaps unusual is the fact that while the G&F's new main shops were completed in Douglas in 1910 and remained there, the company's offices continued to be located in Augusta throughout its history.)
The four short lines that formed the nucleus of the Georgia & Florida Railway were:
The Augusta & Florida Railway operated from Keysville, Georgia to Midville, Georgia and was some thirty miles in length. At Midville, the Atlantic & Gulf Short Line Railroad, which had been originally built as the Midville and Red Bluff Railroad, extended some twenty additional miles to Swainsboro, Georgia. At the time of acquisition, the Atlantic & Gulf Short Line was under lease to the Augusta & Florida Railway.
The Millen & Southwestern Railroad, which had originally been called the Rogers and Summit Rail Road and thence the Millen Southern Railway, was about fifty-three miles long and ran from Millen to Pendleton, Georgia and thence southward to Vidalia, Georgia.
The Douglas, Augusta & Gulf Railway (about eighty-seven miles long) extended from Hazlehurst to Garent, Georgia then to Broxton, Georgia (later abandoned) and from Broxton to Douglas Junction to Nashville, Georgia. A two mile branch from Broxton to Barrows Bluff, Georgia was abandoned. The twelve mile long Nashville & Sparks Railroad (Nashville to Sparks, Georgia) was under lease to the Douglas, Augusta & Gulf Railway when this road was acquired by the G&F. Later, in 1910, the G&F extended the former Nashville & Sparks some two and one-half miles from Sparks to Adel, Georgia to connect with the South Georgia Railway which ran southward some eighty-two miles to Hampton Springs, Florida.
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