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Southern Railway (U.S.)

January 04, 2023

Not to be confused with Southern Pacific Railroad.

The Southern Railway (reporting mark SOU) (also known as Southern Railway Company and now known as the Norfolk Southern Railway) was a class 1 railroad based in the Southern United States between 1894 and 1982, when it merged with the Norfolk & Western to form Norfolk Southern. The railroad was the product of nearly 150 predecessor lines that were combined, reorganized and recombined beginning in the 1830s, formally becoming the Southern Railway in 1894.[1]

Southern Railway
Overview
HeadquartersWashington, D.C.
Reporting markSOU
LocaleWashington, D.C., Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Louisiana
Dates of operation1894–1982
SuccessorNorfolk Southern Railway (new name, 1982–present)
Technical
Track gauge4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge

At the end of 1971, the Southern operated 6,026 miles (9,698 km) of railroad, not including its Class I subsidiaries Alabama Great Southern (528 miles or 850 km); Central of Georgia (1729 miles); Savannah & Atlanta (167 miles); Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railway (415 miles); Georgia Southern & Florida (454 miles); and twelve Class II subsidiaries. That year, the Southern itself reported 26,111 million net ton-miles of revenue freight and 110 million passenger-miles. Alabama Great Southern reported 3,854 million net ton-miles of revenue freight and 11 million passenger-miles; Central of Georgia 3,595 and 17; Savannah & Atlanta 140 and 0; Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railway 4906 and 0.3; and Georgia Southern & Florida 1,431 and 0.3.

The railroad joined forces with the Norfolk and Western Railway (N&W) in 1980 to form the Norfolk Southern Corporation. The Norfolk Southern Corporation was created in response to the creation of the CSX Corporation (its rail system was later transformed to CSX Transportation in 1986). Southern and N&W continued as operating companies of Norfolk Southern until in 1982, when Norfolk Southern merged nearly all of N&W's operations into Southern to form the Norfolk Southern Railway. The railroad has used that name since.

History

Official predecessors

Creation and independent status

 
The Southern Railway Building in Washington, DC, formerly located at Pennsylvania Avenue and 13th Street NW in the 1920s
 
An 1895 system map.
 
A 1921 system map.

The pioneering South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company, Southern's earliest predecessor line and one of the first railroads in the United States, was chartered on December 19, 1827, and ran the nation's first regularly scheduled steam-powered passenger train – the wood-burning Best Friend of Charleston – over a six-mile section out of Charleston, South Carolina, on December 25, 1830.[2][3] By October 1833, its 136-mile line to Hamburg, South Carolina, was the longest in the world.[2][3] The company leased enslaved African Americans from plantation owners when free white people refused to work in the swamps. The company eventually purchased 89 people to work as slaves.[4]

As railroad fever struck other Southern states, networks gradually spread across the South and even across the Appalachian Mountains. By 1857 the Memphis and Charleston Railroad was completed to link both Charleston, South Carolina, and Memphis, Tennessee.[5] The Western North Carolina Railroad was halted because voters were angry about that law allowed purchasers of private bonds to have the train tracks veer to their towns. The provision of the laws that allowed this was not repealed until Reconstruction.[6]

Rail expansion in the South was also halted with the start of the Civil War. The Battle of Shiloh, the Siege of Corinth and the Second Battle of Corinth in 1862 were motivated by the importance of the Memphis and Charleston line, the only east–west rail link across the Confederacy.[7] The Chickamauga Campaign for Chattanooga, Tennessee, was also motivated by the importance of its rail connections to the Memphis and Charleston and other lines. Also in 1862 the Richmond and York River Railroad, which operated from the Pamunkey River at West Point, Virginia, to Richmond, Virginia, was a major focus of George McClellan's Peninsular Campaign, which culminated in the Seven Days Battles and devastated the tiny rail link. Late in the war, the Richmond and Danville Railroad was the Confederacy's last link to Richmond, and transported Jefferson Davis and his cabinet to Danville, Virginia, just before the fall of Richmond in April 1865.[8]

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. Convict lease was a near continuation of slavery as charges were often only applied to people of African descent. Five-hundred African Americans were assigned to provide back breaking labor on the Western North Carolina Railroad. Men were shipped to and from the worksite in iron shackles and around twenty were drowned in the Tuckasegee River weighted down by their shackles.[6] In the area along the Ohio River and Mississippi River, construction of new railroads continued throughout Reconstruction. The Richmond and Danville System expanded throughout the South during this period, but was overextended, and came upon financial troubles in 1893, when control was lost to financier J. P. Morgan, who reorganized it into the Southern Railway System.

Southern Railway came into existence in 1894 through the combination of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, the Richmond and Danville system and the East Tennessee, Virginia and 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 controlled the Alabama Great Southern and the Georgia Southern and Florida, which operated separately, and it had an interest in the Central of Georgia.[1] Additionally, the Southern Railway also agreed to lease the North Carolina Railroad Company, providing a critical connection from Virginia to the rest of the southeast via the Carolinas.[9]

Southern's first president, Samuel Spencer, brought more lines into Southern's organized system.[10] During his 12-year term, the railway built new shops at Spencer, North Carolina, Knoxville, Tennessee, and Atlanta, Georgia, upgraded tracks, and purchased more equipment.[10] 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.[10] On November 29, 1906, Spencer was killed in a train wreck.[11]

After the line from Meridian, Mississippi, to New Orleans, Louisiana, was acquired in 1916 under Southern's president Fairfax Harrison, the railroad had assembled the 8,000-mile, 13-state system that lasted for almost half a century.[10] Additionally, Southern have operated 6,791 miles of road at the end of 1925, but its flock of subsidiaries added 1000+ more.

In 1912, the Southern Railway leased most of its Bluemont, Virginia, branch to the newly formed Washington and Old Dominion Railway. In 1945, the Southern sold most of the remnant of the branch to the Washington and Old Dominion Railroad, the successor to the Washington and Old Dominion Railway.[12]

The Central of Georgia became part of the system in 1963, and the former Norfolk Southern Railway was acquired in 1974.[10] Despite these small acquisitions, the Southern disdained the merger trend when it swept the railroad industry in the 1960s, choosing to remain a regional carrier. In 1978 President L. Stanley Crane[13][14] said the refusal to add routes through merger was a mistake, especially the decision not to add a connecting route to Chicago.[15]

The Southern tried to gain access to Chicago by targeting the Monon Railroad and the Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad but both those railroads went to Southern's competitor, the Louisville and Nashville Railroad.[16] A decade later Crane tried to rectify the situation by merging with the Illinois Central Railroad.[17] When that failed, he petitioned the Interstate Commerce Commission to give Southern the old Monon routes and the old Atlantic Coast Line route from Jacksonville to Tampa by way of Orlando among other properties as a condition of the I.C.C.'s approval of the Seaboard Coast Line – Chessie System merger in 1979. While the request was supported by the I.C.C.'s Enforcement Bureau, it was ultimately unsuccessful.[18]

Becoming part of the Norfolk Southern Corporation

In response to the creation of the CSX Corporation in November 1980, the Southern Railway joined forces with the Norfolk and Western Railway and formed the Norfolk Southern Corporation in 1980 which began operations in 1982, further consolidating railroads in the eastern half of the United States.[19][20]

The Southern Railway was renamed Norfolk Southern Railway as the Norfolk and Western Railway became a subsidiary to its system on June 1, 1982.[20][21] The railroad then acquired more than half of Conrail on June 1, 1999.[20]

Notable features

Southern and its predecessors were responsible for many firsts in the industry. Starting in 1833, its predecessor, the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road, was the first to carry passengers, U.S. troops and mail on steam-powered trains[22] and experimented with railroad lighting. They had a pine log fire on a flatcar, covered in sand, to provide light at night before inexpensive kerosene was invented for lamps.[23]

In 1941, the Southern Railway went under dieselization and became the first major railroad in the United States to be fully converted from steam to diesel-powered locomotives in 1953.[10][24] On January 20, 1953, the last steam-powered passenger train arrived in Knoxville, Tennessee.[25] On June 17, 1953, the railroad's last steam-powered freight train arrived in Chattanooga, Tennessee.[26][27] Although a handful of 63 steam locomotives were still in the Southern's employ in 1954 according to Southern Railway System, Steam Locomotives and Boats by Richard E. Prince.

The Southern Railway was active in mechanization, used bank engines, is widely credited with inventing unit trains for coal and new freight cars,[28] and understood the power of marketing using the promotional phrase "Southern Gives a Green Light to Innovation".[29]

In 1966, a popular steam locomotive excursion program was instituted under the presidency of W. Graham Claytor Jr., and included Southern veteran locomotives No. 630, No. 722,[30] No. 4501, and Savannah & Atlanta No. 750 along with non-Southern locomotives such as Texas & Pacific No. 610,[31] Canadian Pacific No. 2839,[32] and Chesapeake & Ohio No. 2716.[33] The steam program continued after the 1982 merger with the Norfolk and Western to form the Norfolk Southern, through increased operating costs and concerns ended the program in 1994.[33][34] Norfolk Southern reinstated the steam program on a limited basis from 2011 to 2015, as the 21st Century Steam program.

In the early 2000s, a 22-mile (35 km) loop of former Southern Railway right-of-way encircling central Atlanta neighborhoods was acquired and is now the BeltLine trail.

Passenger trains

 
Postcard showing the Tennessean in its 1940s livery, with an EMD E6A locomotive on the point
 
Word-mark used for the Crescent since its debut on the Southern's 6900-series EMD E8A units, and later

Along with its famed (Southern) Crescent and Southerner, the Southern's other named passenger trains included:[35]

The Southern Railway also handled ticket sales and operations for subsidiary railroads, such as:

  • The Nancy Hanks (operated by Central of Georgia Railway)[36]
  • The Man O' War (operated by Central of Georgia Railway)

The Southern Railway also participated in the operation of the City of Miami, which was operated by the Southern Railway over the Central of Georgia trackage from Birmingham, Alabama, to Albany, Georgia, where it traded off with the Seaboard Coast Line until its discontinuation in 1971.

When Amtrak took over most intercity rail service in 1971, Southern initially opted out of turning over its passenger routes to the new organization. However, it shared operation of its flagship train, the New Orleans–New York Southern Crescent, with Amtrak. Under a longstanding haulage agreement inherited from Penn Central and the Pennsylvania Railroad, Amtrak carried the train north of Washington. By the late 1970s, growing revenue losses and equipment-replacement expenses convinced Southern it could not continue in the passenger business. It handed full control of its passenger routes to Amtrak in 1979.

Roads owned by the Southern Railway

Major railroad yards

Company officers

Presidents of the Southern Railway:

Heritage unit

To mark its 30th anniversary, Norfolk Southern painted 20 new locomotives with the paint schemes of predecessor railroads. GE ES44AC #8099 was painted in Southern Railway's green and white livery.[40][41]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b "Southern Railway History". Southern Railway Historical Association. March 5, 2017. Retrieved March 12, 2017.
  2. ^ a b Marrs, Aaron W. . South Carolina Encyclopedia. Archived from the original on April 19, 2019. Retrieved April 19, 2019.
  3. ^ a b Loy, Hillman & Cates (2004), p. 7.
  4. ^ Ulrich Bonnell Phillips (1908). Transportation in the Ante-bellum South: An Economic Analysis. Ulrich Bonnell Phillips. pp. 148–153.
  5. ^ Harper's Encyclopædia of United States History from 458 A.D. to 1905: Based Upon the Plan of Benson John Lossing ... Harper & brothers. 1906. p. 526.
  6. ^ a b Sue Greenberg; Jan Kahn (1997). Asheville: A Postcard History. Arcadia Publishing. p. 10. ISBN 978-0752408071.
  7. ^ Cozzens, Peter (1997). The Darkest Days of the War The Battles of Iuka&Corinth. North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press. pp. 18–19. ISBN 978-0807857830.
  8. ^ John Stewart (2014). Jefferson Davis's Flight from Richmond: The Calm Morning, Lee's Telegrams, the Evacuation, the Train, the Passengers, the Trip, the Arrival in Danville and the Historians' Frauds. McFarland. p. 28. ISBN 978-1476616407.
  9. ^ North Carolina. Board of Railroad Commissioners (1895). Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners of North Carolina. J. Daniels, state printer. pp. iv–xiii.
  10. ^ a b c d e f Loy, Hillman & Cates (2004), p. 8.
  11. ^ . The New York Times. November 30, 1906. Archived from the original on June 20, 2018. Retrieved April 20, 2019.
  12. ^ (1) Harwood, Herbert H. Jr. (April 2000). (PDF) (3rd ed.). Fairfax Station, Virginia: Northern Virginia Parks Authority. pp. 45–46, 90. ISBN 0615114539. LCCN 77104382. OCLC 44685168. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 28, 2017. In Appendix K of Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority – Pre-filed Direct Testimony of Mr. Hafner, Mr. Mcray and Mr. Simmons, November 30, 2005 (Part 5), Case No. PUE-2005-00018, Virginia State Corporation Commission. Obtained in "Case Docket Search". Virginia State Corporation Commission. Retrieved September 28, 2017.
    (2) Williams, Ames W. (1989). The Washington and Old Dominion Railroad. Arlington, Virginia: Arlington Historical Society. p. 94. ISBN 0926984004. OCLC 20461397.
  13. ^ a b "NAE Website – Mr. L. Stanley Crane".
  14. ^ a b L. Stanley Crane (born in Cincinnati, 1915) raised in Washington, lived in McLean before moving to Philadelphia in 1981. He began his career with Southern Railway after graduating from The George Washington University with a chemical engineering degree in 1938. He worked for the railroad, except for a stint from 1959 to 1961 with the Pennsylvania Railroad, until reaching the company's mandatory retirement age in 1980. Crane went to Conrail in 1981 after a distinguished career that had seen him rise to the position of CEO at the Southern Railway. He died of pneumonia on July 15, 2003, at a hospice in Boynton Beach, Florida
  15. ^ "Deadline Set on Rail Merger" (PDF). U.S.Government Publishing Office. U.S.Government Publishing Office. June 30, 1980. Retrieved May 12, 2017. The purpose of the agency is to give railroads an opportunity to purchase portions of the Chessie and Seaboard systems. Cited as an example was the Southern Railroad's interest in the Louisville & Nashville line between Louisville, Ky., and Chicago, Ill. 'There may be other examples where parties have been unable to agree on specific terms such as price of properties and operational arrangements because of a failure to communicate adequately,' the agency said.
  16. ^ "Monon, L&N. Roads Act to Merge". Chicago Tribune. March 22, 1968. Retrieved May 12, 2017.
  17. ^ "Southern Dreams of Chicago". Chicago Tribune. July 5, 1978. Retrieved May 12, 2017.
  18. ^ April 8, 1978 "I.C.C. Urged to Split Seaboard Coast Line". The New York Times. April 8, 1978. Retrieved May 12, 2017.
  19. ^ . The Washington Post. February 22, 1982. Archived from the original on May 19, 2018. Retrieved May 19, 2018.
  20. ^ a b c . Trains. June 2, 2006. Archived from the original on July 19, 2017. Retrieved May 19, 2018.
  21. ^ Davis (1985), p. 165.
  22. ^ Brown, William H. (1871). "Chapter XXIX: Explosion of "Best Friend"". The History of the First Locomotives in America; From Original Documents And The Testimony Of Living Witnesses. New York: D. Appleton and Company. Archived from the original on November 26, 2001. Retrieved May 28, 2008.
  23. ^ Christian Wolmar (March 2, 2010). Blood, Iron, and Gold: How the Railways Transformed the World. PublicAffairs. p. 72. ISBN 978-1586488512.
  24. ^ Schafer (2000), p. 133.
  25. ^ Loy, Hillman & Cates (2004), p. 10.
  26. ^ Davis (1985), p. 3.
  27. ^ Loy, Hillman & Cates (2004), p. 13.
  28. ^ Brian Solomon; Patrick Yough (July 15, 2009). Coal Trains: The History of Railroading and Coal in the United States. MBI Publishing Company. p. 13. ISBN 978-1616731373.
  29. ^ Kelly, John (April 5, 2001). "Selling the service: A look at memorable railroad slogans and heralds through the years". Classic Trains Magazine. Kalmbach Publishing. Retrieved May 16, 2017.
  30. ^ Loy, Hillman & Cates (2004), p. 124.
  31. ^ Loy, Hillman & Cates (2005), p. 114.
  32. ^ Loy, Hillman & Cates (2005), p. 123.
  33. ^ a b Schafer (2000), p. 134.
  34. ^ Phillips, Don (October 29, 1994). . The Washington Post. Archived from the original on November 30, 2016. Retrieved March 11, 2017.
  35. ^ Schafer (2000), pp. 127–132.
  36. ^ Loy, Hillman & Cates (2004), p. 93.
  37. ^ Loy, Hillman & Cates (2004), p. 54.
  38. ^ . North Carolina Transportation Museum. Archived from the original on February 5, 2007. Retrieved January 25, 2007.
  39. ^ quotes from article by journalist Don Phillips of the Washington Post in a "Tribute to W. Graham Claytor, Jr." published May, 1994
  40. ^ Heritage Locomotives Norfolk Southern
  41. ^ Norfolk Southern Heritage Locomotives Norfolk Southern

Bibliography

  • Davis, Burke (1985). The Southern Railway: Roads of the Innovators (1st ed.). University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 0807816361.
  • Loy, Sallie; Hillman, Dick; Cates, C. Pat (2004). The Southern Railway. Images of Rail (1st ed.). Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-0738516417.
  • Loy, Sallie; Hillman, Dick; Cates, C. Pat (2005). The Southern Railway: Further Recollections. Images of Rail (1st ed.). Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-0738518312.
  • Schafer, Mike (2000). More Classic American Railroads (1st ed.). Voyageur Press. ISBN 076030758X.

Further reading

  • The Historical Guide to North American Railroads, Third Edition (3rd ed.). Kalmbach Publishing. 2014. pp. 273–275. ISBN 978-0890249703.
  • Harrison, Fairfax. A History of the Legal Development of the Railroad System of Southern Railway Company. Washington, D.C.: 1901.
  • Murray, Tom (2007). Southern Railway. MBI Railroad Color History (1st ed.). Voyageur Press. ISBN 978-0760325452.
  • Prince, Richard E. (1970). Steam Locomotives and Boats: Southern Railway System (2nd ed.). Wheelwright Lithographing Company. ISBN 0960008845.

External links

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Southern Railway (US).
  • Southern Railway Historical Association covers Southern Railway history
  • at the Wayback Machine (archived 2008-05-11), which was replaced by a map version on AbandonedRails.com.

January 04, 2023
southern, railway, confused, with, southern, pacific, railroad, southern, railway, reporting, mark, also, known, southern, railway, company, known, norfolk, southern, railway, class, railroad, based, southern, united, states, between, 1894, 1982, when, merged,. Not to be confused with Southern Pacific Railroad The Southern Railway reporting mark SOU also known as Southern Railway Company and now known as the Norfolk Southern Railway was a class 1 railroad based in the Southern United States between 1894 and 1982 when it merged with the Norfolk amp Western to form Norfolk Southern The railroad was the product of nearly 150 predecessor lines that were combined reorganized and recombined beginning in the 1830s formally becoming the Southern Railway in 1894 1 Southern RailwayOverviewHeadquartersWashington D C Reporting markSOULocaleWashington D C Virginia North Carolina South Carolina Georgia Florida Alabama Mississippi Tennessee Kentucky Ohio Illinois Indiana Missouri and LouisianaDates of operation1894 1982SuccessorNorfolk Southern Railway new name 1982 present TechnicalTrack gauge4 ft 8 1 2 in 1 435 mm standard gaugeAt the end of 1971 the Southern operated 6 026 miles 9 698 km of railroad not including its Class I subsidiaries Alabama Great Southern 528 miles or 850 km Central of Georgia 1729 miles Savannah amp Atlanta 167 miles Cincinnati New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railway 415 miles Georgia Southern amp Florida 454 miles and twelve Class II subsidiaries That year the Southern itself reported 26 111 million net ton miles of revenue freight and 110 million passenger miles Alabama Great Southern reported 3 854 million net ton miles of revenue freight and 11 million passenger miles Central of Georgia 3 595 and 17 Savannah amp Atlanta 140 and 0 Cincinnati New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railway 4906 and 0 3 and Georgia Southern amp Florida 1 431 and 0 3 The railroad joined forces with the Norfolk and Western Railway N amp W in 1980 to form the Norfolk Southern Corporation The Norfolk Southern Corporation was created in response to the creation of the CSX Corporation its rail system was later transformed to CSX Transportation in 1986 Southern and N amp W continued as operating companies of Norfolk Southern until in 1982 when Norfolk Southern merged nearly all of N amp W s operations into Southern to form the Norfolk Southern Railway The railroad has used that name since Contents 1 History 1 1 Official predecessors 1 2 Creation and independent status 1 3 Becoming part of the Norfolk Southern Corporation 2 Notable features 3 Passenger trains 4 Roads owned by the Southern Railway 5 Major railroad yards 6 Company officers 7 Heritage unit 8 See also 9 References 10 Bibliography 11 Further reading 12 External linksHistory EditOfficial predecessors Edit Richmond York River and Chesapeake Railroad 1894 Richmond and Danville Railroad 1894 Memphis and Charleston Railroad 1894 East Tennessee Virginia and Georgia Railway 1894 Cincinnati New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railway 1894 Creation and independent status Edit The Southern Railway Building in Washington DC formerly located at Pennsylvania Avenue and 13th Street NW in the 1920s An 1895 system map A 1921 system map The pioneering South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company Southern s earliest predecessor line and one of the first railroads in the United States was chartered on December 19 1827 and ran the nation s first regularly scheduled steam powered passenger train the wood burning Best Friend of Charleston over a six mile section out of Charleston South Carolina on December 25 1830 2 3 By October 1833 its 136 mile line to Hamburg South Carolina was the longest in the world 2 3 The company leased enslaved African Americans from plantation owners when free white people refused to work in the swamps The company eventually purchased 89 people to work as slaves 4 As railroad fever struck other Southern states networks gradually spread across the South and even across the Appalachian Mountains By 1857 the Memphis and Charleston Railroad was completed to link both Charleston South Carolina and Memphis Tennessee 5 The Western North Carolina Railroad was halted because voters were angry about that law allowed purchasers of private bonds to have the train tracks veer to their towns The provision of the laws that allowed this was not repealed until Reconstruction 6 Rail expansion in the South was also halted with the start of the Civil War The Battle of Shiloh the Siege of Corinth and the Second Battle of Corinth in 1862 were motivated by the importance of the Memphis and Charleston line the only east west rail link across the Confederacy 7 The Chickamauga Campaign for Chattanooga Tennessee was also motivated by the importance of its rail connections to the Memphis and Charleston and other lines Also in 1862 the Richmond and York River Railroad which operated from the Pamunkey River at West Point Virginia to Richmond Virginia was a major focus of George McClellan s Peninsular Campaign which culminated in the Seven Days Battles and devastated the tiny rail link Late in the war the Richmond and Danville Railroad was the Confederacy s last link to Richmond and transported Jefferson Davis and his cabinet to Danville Virginia just before the fall of Richmond in April 1865 8 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 Convict lease was a near continuation of slavery as charges were often only applied to people of African descent Five hundred African Americans were assigned to provide back breaking labor on the Western North Carolina Railroad Men were shipped to and from the worksite in iron shackles and around twenty were drowned in the Tuckasegee River weighted down by their shackles 6 In the area along the Ohio River and Mississippi River construction of new railroads continued throughout Reconstruction The Richmond and Danville System expanded throughout the South during this period but was overextended and came upon financial troubles in 1893 when control was lost to financier J P Morgan who reorganized it into the Southern Railway System Southern Railway came into existence in 1894 through the combination of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad the Richmond and Danville system and the East Tennessee Virginia and 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 controlled the Alabama Great Southern and the Georgia Southern and Florida which operated separately and it had an interest in the Central of Georgia 1 Additionally the Southern Railway also agreed to lease the North Carolina Railroad Company providing a critical connection from Virginia to the rest of the southeast via the Carolinas 9 Southern s first president Samuel Spencer brought more lines into Southern s organized system 10 During his 12 year term the railway built new shops at Spencer North Carolina Knoxville Tennessee and Atlanta Georgia upgraded tracks and purchased more equipment 10 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 10 On November 29 1906 Spencer was killed in a train wreck 11 After the line from Meridian Mississippi to New Orleans Louisiana was acquired in 1916 under Southern s president Fairfax Harrison the railroad had assembled the 8 000 mile 13 state system that lasted for almost half a century 10 Additionally Southern have operated 6 791 miles of road at the end of 1925 but its flock of subsidiaries added 1000 more In 1912 the Southern Railway leased most of its Bluemont Virginia branch to the newly formed Washington and Old Dominion Railway In 1945 the Southern sold most of the remnant of the branch to the Washington and Old Dominion Railroad the successor to the Washington and Old Dominion Railway 12 The Central of Georgia became part of the system in 1963 and the former Norfolk Southern Railway was acquired in 1974 10 Despite these small acquisitions the Southern disdained the merger trend when it swept the railroad industry in the 1960s choosing to remain a regional carrier In 1978 President L Stanley Crane 13 14 said the refusal to add routes through merger was a mistake especially the decision not to add a connecting route to Chicago 15 The Southern tried to gain access to Chicago by targeting the Monon Railroad and the Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad but both those railroads went to Southern s competitor the Louisville and Nashville Railroad 16 A decade later Crane tried to rectify the situation by merging with the Illinois Central Railroad 17 When that failed he petitioned the Interstate Commerce Commission to give Southern the old Monon routes and the old Atlantic Coast Line route from Jacksonville to Tampa by way of Orlando among other properties as a condition of the I C C s approval of the Seaboard Coast Line Chessie System merger in 1979 While the request was supported by the I C C s Enforcement Bureau it was ultimately unsuccessful 18 Becoming part of the Norfolk Southern Corporation Edit In response to the creation of the CSX Corporation in November 1980 the Southern Railway joined forces with the Norfolk and Western Railway and formed the Norfolk Southern Corporation in 1980 which began operations in 1982 further consolidating railroads in the eastern half of the United States 19 20 The Southern Railway was renamed Norfolk Southern Railway as the Norfolk and Western Railway became a subsidiary to its system on June 1 1982 20 21 The railroad then acquired more than half of Conrail on June 1 1999 20 Notable features EditSouthern and its predecessors were responsible for many firsts in the industry Starting in 1833 its predecessor the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road was the first to carry passengers U S troops and mail on steam powered trains 22 and experimented with railroad lighting They had a pine log fire on a flatcar covered in sand to provide light at night before inexpensive kerosene was invented for lamps 23 In 1941 the Southern Railway went under dieselization and became the first major railroad in the United States to be fully converted from steam to diesel powered locomotives in 1953 10 24 On January 20 1953 the last steam powered passenger train arrived in Knoxville Tennessee 25 On June 17 1953 the railroad s last steam powered freight train arrived in Chattanooga Tennessee 26 27 Although a handful of 63 steam locomotives were still in the Southern s employ in 1954 according to Southern Railway System Steam Locomotives and Boats by Richard E Prince The Southern Railway was active in mechanization used bank engines is widely credited with inventing unit trains for coal and new freight cars 28 and understood the power of marketing using the promotional phrase Southern Gives a Green Light to Innovation 29 In 1966 a popular steam locomotive excursion program was instituted under the presidency of W Graham Claytor Jr and included Southern veteran locomotives No 630 No 722 30 No 4501 and Savannah amp Atlanta No 750 along with non Southern locomotives such as Texas amp Pacific No 610 31 Canadian Pacific No 2839 32 and Chesapeake amp Ohio No 2716 33 The steam program continued after the 1982 merger with the Norfolk and Western to form the Norfolk Southern through increased operating costs and concerns ended the program in 1994 33 34 Norfolk Southern reinstated the steam program on a limited basis from 2011 to 2015 as the 21st Century Steam program In the early 2000s a 22 mile 35 km loop of former Southern Railway right of way encircling central Atlanta neighborhoods was acquired and is now the BeltLine trail Passenger trains Edit Postcard showing the Tennessean in its 1940s livery with an EMD E6A locomotive on the point Word mark used for the Crescent since its debut on the Southern s 6900 series EMD E8A units and later Along with its famed Southern Crescent and Southerner the Southern s other named passenger trains included 35 Aiken Augusta Special Airline Belle Asheville Special Birmingham Special Carolina Special Fast Mail Old 97 Florida Sunbeam Goldenrod Kansas City Florida Special Land of the Sky Special Memphis Special New Yorker Peach Queen Pelican Piedmont Limited Ponce de Leon Queen and Crescent Limited Royal Palm Skyland Special Sunnyland TennesseanThe Southern Railway also handled ticket sales and operations for subsidiary railroads such as The Nancy Hanks operated by Central of Georgia Railway 36 The Man O War operated by Central of Georgia Railway The Southern Railway also participated in the operation of the City of Miami which was operated by the Southern Railway over the Central of Georgia trackage from Birmingham Alabama to Albany Georgia where it traded off with the Seaboard Coast Line until its discontinuation in 1971 When Amtrak took over most intercity rail service in 1971 Southern initially opted out of turning over its passenger routes to the new organization However it shared operation of its flagship train the New Orleans New York Southern Crescent with Amtrak Under a longstanding haulage agreement inherited from Penn Central and the Pennsylvania Railroad Amtrak carried the train north of Washington By the late 1970s growing revenue losses and equipment replacement expenses convinced Southern it could not continue in the passenger business It handed full control of its passenger routes to Amtrak in 1979 Roads owned by the Southern Railway EditAlabama Great Southern Railway AGS Albany and Northern Railway A amp N Atlantic amp Eastern Carolina Railway A amp EC Birmingham Terminal Company Camp Lejeune Railroad Company Carolina and Northwestern Railway C amp NW Central of Georgia Railway CofG CG Cincinnati New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railway CNO amp TP Chattanooga Station Company Chattanooga Traction Company CTC Georgia and Florida Railroad G amp F Georgia Ashburn Sylvester and Camilla Railway GAS amp C Georgia Northern Railway GANO acquired in 1967 Georgia Southern and Florida Railway GS amp F Interstate Railroad INT Kentucky and Indiana Terminal Railroad K amp IT Sievern and Knoxville Railroad Live Oak Perry and Gulf Railway LOP amp G Louisiana Southern Railway LS New Orleans and North Eastern Railway NO amp NE New Orleans Terminal Company NOTCO Norfolk Southern Railway NS Savannah amp Atlanta Railway SA Saint John s River Terminal Company SJRT State University Railroad Company 54 South Georgia Railway SG Tennessee Alabama and Georgia Railway TA amp G Tennessee Railway TENN Major railroad yards EditChattanooga Tennessee DeButts Yard formerly Citico Yard Atlanta Georgia Inman Yard Spencer North Carolina Spencer Yard Birmingham Alabama Norris Yard Knoxville Tennessee Sevier Yard Macon Georgia Brosnan Yard 37 Sheffield Alabama Sheffield Yard Alexandria Virginia Potomac YardCompany officers EditPresidents of the Southern Railway Samuel Spencer 1894 1906 38 William Finley 1906 1913 Fairfax Harrison 1913 1937 Ernest E Norris 1937 1951 Harry A DeButts 1951 1962 D William Brosnan 1962 1967 W Graham Claytor Jr 1967 1977 39 L Stanley Crane 13 14 1977 1980 Harold H Hall 1980 1982 Heritage unit EditTo mark its 30th anniversary Norfolk Southern painted 20 new locomotives with the paint schemes of predecessor railroads GE ES44AC 8099 was painted in Southern Railway s green and white livery 40 41 See also Edit Railways portalFM OP800 Southern Railway s Spencer ShopsReferences Edit a b Southern Railway History Southern Railway Historical Association March 5 2017 Retrieved March 12 2017 a b Marrs Aaron W South Carolina Railroad December 19 1827 1902 South Carolina Encyclopedia Archived from the original on April 19 2019 Retrieved April 19 2019 a b Loy Hillman amp Cates 2004 p 7 Ulrich Bonnell Phillips 1908 Transportation in the Ante bellum South An Economic Analysis Ulrich Bonnell Phillips pp 148 153 Harper s Encyclopaedia of United States History from 458 A D to 1905 Based Upon the Plan of Benson John Lossing Harper amp brothers 1906 p 526 a b Sue Greenberg Jan Kahn 1997 Asheville A Postcard History Arcadia Publishing p 10 ISBN 978 0752408071 Cozzens Peter 1997 The Darkest Days of the War The Battles of Iuka amp Corinth North Carolina The University of North Carolina Press pp 18 19 ISBN 978 0807857830 John Stewart 2014 Jefferson Davis s Flight from Richmond The Calm Morning Lee s Telegrams the Evacuation the Train the Passengers the Trip the Arrival in Danville and the Historians Frauds McFarland p 28 ISBN 978 1476616407 North Carolina Board of Railroad Commissioners 1895 Annual Report of the Board of Railroad Commissioners of North Carolina J Daniels state printer pp iv xiii a b c d e f Loy Hillman amp Cates 2004 p 8 Samuel Spencer Killed In Wreck The New York Times November 30 1906 Archived from the original on June 20 2018 Retrieved April 20 2019 1 Harwood Herbert H Jr April 2000 Rails to the Blue Ridge The Washington and Old Dominion Railroad 1847 1968 PDF 3rd ed Fairfax Station Virginia Northern Virginia Parks Authority pp 45 46 90 ISBN 0615114539 LCCN 77104382 OCLC 44685168 Archived from the original PDF on September 28 2017 In Appendix K of Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority Pre filed Direct Testimony of Mr Hafner Mr Mcray and Mr Simmons November 30 2005 Part 5 Case No PUE 2005 00018 Virginia State Corporation Commission Obtained in Case Docket Search Virginia State Corporation Commission Retrieved September 28 2017 2 Williams Ames W 1989 The Washington and Old Dominion Railroad Arlington Virginia Arlington Historical Society p 94 ISBN 0926984004 OCLC 20461397 a b NAE Website Mr L Stanley Crane a b L Stanley Crane born in Cincinnati 1915 raised in Washington lived in McLean before moving to Philadelphia in 1981 He began his career with Southern Railway after graduating from The George Washington University with a chemical engineering degree in 1938 He worked for the railroad except for a stint from 1959 to 1961 with the Pennsylvania Railroad until reaching the company s mandatory retirement age in 1980 Crane went to Conrail in 1981 after a distinguished career that had seen him rise to the position of CEO at the Southern Railway He died of pneumonia on July 15 2003 at a hospice in Boynton Beach Florida Deadline Set on Rail Merger PDF U S Government Publishing Office U S Government Publishing Office June 30 1980 Retrieved May 12 2017 The purpose of the agency is to give railroads an opportunity to purchase portions of the Chessie and Seaboard systems Cited as an example was the Southern Railroad s interest in the Louisville amp Nashville line between Louisville Ky and Chicago Ill There may be other examples where parties have been unable to agree on specific terms such as price of properties and operational arrangements because of a failure to communicate adequately the agency said Monon L amp N Roads Act to Merge Chicago Tribune March 22 1968 Retrieved May 12 2017 Southern Dreams of Chicago Chicago Tribune July 5 1978 Retrieved May 12 2017 April 8 1978 I C C Urged to Split Seaboard Coast Line The New York Times April 8 1978 Retrieved May 12 2017 Southern Rail N amp The Washington Post February 22 1982 Archived from the original on May 19 2018 Retrieved May 19 2018 a b c Norfolk Southern merger family tree Trains June 2 2006 Archived from the original on July 19 2017 Retrieved May 19 2018 Davis 1985 p 165 Brown William H 1871 Chapter XXIX Explosion of Best Friend The History of the First Locomotives in America From Original Documents And The Testimony Of Living Witnesses New York D Appleton and Company Archived from the original on November 26 2001 Retrieved May 28 2008 Christian Wolmar March 2 2010 Blood Iron and Gold How the Railways Transformed the World PublicAffairs p 72 ISBN 978 1586488512 Schafer 2000 p 133 Loy Hillman amp Cates 2004 p 10 Davis 1985 p 3 Loy Hillman amp Cates 2004 p 13 Brian Solomon Patrick Yough July 15 2009 Coal Trains The History of Railroading and Coal in the United States MBI Publishing Company p 13 ISBN 978 1616731373 Kelly John April 5 2001 Selling the service A look at memorable railroad slogans and heralds through the years Classic Trains Magazine Kalmbach Publishing Retrieved May 16 2017 Loy Hillman amp Cates 2004 p 124 Loy Hillman amp Cates 2005 p 114 Loy Hillman amp Cates 2005 p 123 a b Schafer 2000 p 134 Phillips Don October 29 1994 Norfolk Southern plans to end nostalgic steam locomotive program The Washington Post Archived from the original on November 30 2016 Retrieved March 11 2017 Schafer 2000 pp 127 132 Loy Hillman amp Cates 2004 p 93 Loy Hillman amp Cates 2004 p 54 The History of the railroad and Spencer North Carolina Transportation Museum Archived from the original on February 5 2007 Retrieved January 25 2007 quotes from article by journalist Don Phillips of the Washington Post in a Tribute to W Graham Claytor Jr published May 1994 Heritage Locomotives Norfolk Southern Norfolk Southern Heritage Locomotives Norfolk SouthernBibliography EditDavis Burke 1985 The Southern Railway Roads of the Innovators 1st ed University of North Carolina Press ISBN 0807816361 Loy Sallie Hillman Dick Cates C Pat 2004 The Southern Railway Images of Rail 1st ed Arcadia Publishing ISBN 978 0738516417 Loy Sallie Hillman Dick Cates C Pat 2005 The Southern Railway Further Recollections Images of Rail 1st ed Arcadia Publishing ISBN 978 0738518312 Schafer Mike 2000 More Classic American Railroads 1st ed Voyageur Press ISBN 076030758X Further reading EditThe Historical Guide to North American Railroads Third Edition 3rd ed Kalmbach Publishing 2014 pp 273 275 ISBN 978 0890249703 Harrison Fairfax A History of the Legal Development of the Railroad System of Southern Railway Company Washington D C 1901 Murray Tom 2007 Southern Railway MBI Railroad Color History 1st ed Voyageur Press ISBN 978 0760325452 Prince Richard E 1970 Steam Locomotives and Boats Southern Railway System 2nd ed Wheelwright Lithographing Company ISBN 0960008845 External links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Southern Railway US Southern Railway Historical Association covers Southern Railway history Railroad lines abandoned by the Southern Railway at the Wayback Machine archived 2008 05 11 which was replaced by a map version on AbandonedRails com Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Southern Railway U S amp oldid 1116310387, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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