If Union Pacific Corp. is successful in acquiring Norfolk Southern, Atlanta would lose the headquarters of one of its newest Fortune 500 companies. Both companies announced Tuesday morning that they intend to merge both railroads to create “America’s First Continental Railroad.” If approved, the combined company would provide seamless rail service from coast to coast. […]
Tag: railroads
Posted inLatest News
Three Georgia counties receive more than $3.2M for railroad crossing fixes
Three Georgia counties – including two in metro Atlanta – will receive more than $3.2 million in federal funds for projects aimed at eliminating crashes and blockages at railroad crossings. One project in DeKalb County is just down the street from the City of Atlanta’s controversial new public safety training center project. The funding is […]
Posted inStories of Atlanta
Rules, regulations and fines
It’s pretty easy to imagine the amount of difficulty the newly chartered City of Atlanta experienced trying to bring the rule of law to a community that, since its inception, essentially had no laws. Atlanta, in its early days, was little more than a rowdy, frontier, railroad camp and, in the minds of many of […]
Posted inStories of Atlanta
Seem Familiar?
Samuel Spencer was killed at the age of 59. The accident that took his life happened in the predawn hours of Thanksgiving Day in 1906. Spencer and some of his friends were in Spencer’s private rail car headed for a hunting trip in Virginia. While Spencer and his fellow passengers were asleep, his railcar became […]
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The Augusta Connection
Since officially becoming a city in Georgia, Marthasville had experienced its share of challenges. Growth was slow, real estate sales were sluggish but there were promising signs. A new arrival in 1845 turned out to be just the push the town needed. The spark that ignited a city is the subject of this week’s Stories […]
Posted inStories of Atlanta
The future mayor
With the terminus point finally set, the community officially named and plans for development drawn up, all that was left was to build the town of Marthasville. That effort received a boost when a pioneer citizen arrived to build the one thing the community most needed. We introduce the “Father of Atlanta” on this week’s […]
Posted inStories of Atlanta
Appreciative Guests
If you’re going to throw a party, make it a memorable party. The City of Atlanta did just that when railroad history came to town…the result? Atlanta got a free ride on a party train. This week on Stories of Atlanta, it’s a tale about the benefits of sharing water.
Posted inStories of Atlanta
The Iron Triangle
The Terminus location is fixed. The Iron Triangle is complete. There were winners and there were losers. It’s time to take stock on this week’s Stories of Atlanta.
Posted inStories of Atlanta
Not a river town
During the early days of America’s founding, having access to water was one of the primary prerequisites in choosing a location for a community. It’s not a difficult concept to understand.
Posted inStories of Atlanta
An early attempt at boosterism
It is common knowledge that Atlanta got its start as a railroad town. So it shouldn’t be surprising that the influence of the railroads reached far and wide across our city. But you might not realize just how far and how wide that influence actually ran. Which is why we decided to tackle the question […]
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Atlanta searches for its soul – lost in the Gulch and our hidden zero mile post
If you want to find Atlanta’s heart – our zero mile post – good luck.
It is buried beneath a downtown parking deck in a state-owned building surrounded by chain-link fences in addition to spiked metal bars topped with barbed wires.
Posted inStories of Atlanta
She was fast and reliable
They say it’s the journey, not the destination. And for some in the 1950s and 60s whose destination was Atlanta, the journey was more than mere conveyance, it was, in fact, Southern Tradition. For many, the trip is a lingering memory from childhood. For others, it was just how we lived back in the day, […]
