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Western & Atlantic RailroadThis 137-mile line between Atlanta and Chattanooga was built in 184150 by the State of Georgia at a cost of almost five million dollars. Surveys for the line began i The Georgia Railroad reached Atlanta in September of 1845, followed by the Macon and Western the following year. In 1854, the Atlanta and West Point opened a fourth line into town, coming in from the southwest. The W&A became a key link in the chain of Southern antebellum railroads connecting the Atlantic Ocean and the Mississippi River and was the foundation for Atlantas emergence as a rail center. By the time of the Civil War, the W&A had 46 woodburning locomotives, two of which were to become participants in the Great Locomotive Chase of April 1862. It played a major role in the Atlanta Campaign and its loss to the South in 1864 was a serious blow to the Confederacys hopes of ultimate victory. Like many Southern railroads, the W&A suffered extensive damage during the war. In 1870, the road and rolling stock were leased for 20 years to a corporation headed by former Governor Joseph E. Brown and made up primarily of the officers of the W&A's connecting roads. In the 1889 edition of The Official Railway List, the W&A reported operating 55 locomotives, 41 passenger cars, and 1,332 freight and miscellaneous cars. In 1890, the W&A was leased to the Nashville, Chattanooga, and St. Louis Railway. Owned by the state since its construction, the line is currently under a long-term lease to NC&St.L successor CSX Transportation.
Maps and Timetables: 1837 map at Library of Congress ca. 1850-55 map at North Carolina Maps 1870 map at University of Alabama Map Library 1885 map of W&A from Atlanta to Marietta 1887 map at Library of Congress
The General, famous W&A locomotive stolen by Andrews' Raiders in 1862. See Great Locomotive Chase. (From: Railway and Locomotive Engineering, December 1913).
Suggested Reading: Ulrich Bonnell Phillips. "An American State-owned Railroad: The Western and Atlantic." Yale Review, Vol. XV, No. 3. November, 1906. Online at Google Books here. Article on the W&A at About North Georgia.
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