The station used in "In the Heat of the Night" is actually in Sparta, Illinois...
Sparta, Illinois eh. OK well thank you for that. No doubt it is genuine GM&O territory...would the Midnite Special have gone through Sparta?
Miningman Sparta, Illinois eh. OK well thank you for that. No doubt it is genuine GM&O territory...would the Midnite Special have gone through Sparta?
Johnny
Good good thanks Johnny....might be the Final Jeopardy Question one day and I clean up!
Keep up the instalments on this thread....building up quite the anthology. Keeper stuff.
CSSHEGEWISCH Miningman Sparta, Illinois eh. OK well thank you for that. No doubt it is genuine GM&O territory...would the Midnite Special have gone through Sparta? Not quite. The Midnight Special was a Chicago-St. Louis overnight train that GM&O inherited when it acquired the Alton. The Gulf Coast Rebel would have gone through Sparta.
Yes, GM&O ran through plenty of Mississippi (follow the routes south from Jackson, TN to see some). Remember why they bought the Ingalls 4S?
Just for the record: the 'In the Heat of the Night' Sparta is fictional; the 'real' Sparta is much smaller and more rural.
The depot in Illinois was probably used for the sign; most of the movie was recognizably shot in Hammond (Louisiana) and the TV show I believe in Covington (Georgia) -- the latter without the GM&O references.
Southern Railroading A to Z 10
The Macon, Dublin and Savannah R.R. ran 92.3 miles from Macon, where it connected with the Southern, CoG, and Georgia, to Vidalia, where it connected with the Seaboard and the Georgia and Florida R.R. In Dublin (m.p. 53.5), it connected with the Wrightsville and Tennille. The idea of the planners was to connect Macon with Dublin, and the name originally expressed that desire.
Though construction began in 1885, apparently funds were depleted in the spring of the next year, for construction stopped then, and was not resumed for four years, after the project was lengthened to reach Savannah. In 1901, the work was resumed, and Vidalia was reached the next year, and the connection with the Seaboard Air Line was established. (http://railga.com/galabama.html)
In 1904, The Atlantic Coast Line gained control of the road, possibly with the thought of serving Macon–but the closest point then on the ACL was Ludowici, through an area with little potential for on-line traffic. In 1907, the SAL gained control–and this put a stop to any thought of an extension to Savannah, since Vidalia is on the SAL’s line between Savannah and Montgomery.
In 1958, the road lost all independence when the SAL took it into its fold. In time, the former MD&S, along with the SAL line between Savannah and Vidalia, came to be operated by the Georgia Central.
http://railga.com/mds.html
The South Georgia Railway ran 76.0 miles from Adel, Geogia where it connected with the Georgia and Florida RR and the GS&F RR, to Perry Florida, where it connected with the Atlantic Coast Line RR and the Live Oak, Perry and Gulf RR. Along the way, It connected with the ACL at Quitman, Ga. (Mp 27.5) and with the SAL at Greenville, Fla. (Mp 50.9).
According to http://railga.com/soga.html this road began, in 1897, as the South Georgia Rail Road, running 28 miles from Heartpine to Quitman (I was unable to find any reference to Heartpine as a community; the account states, further, that in 1904, the northern terminus was moved a few miles north to Adel. I have not quite figured this out). The line was extended to Greenville, Fla., in 1901. The next expansion came in 1902, when the West Coast Railway of Florida (which apparently had not yet begun construction) was leased, and, under the name of the South Georgia & West Coast Railway, construction was began to Greenville, Ga. Soon, with reorganization, the name was changed to the South Georgia Railway. (Did they realize that the longer name was too ambitious?) In 1904, Perry, Florida was reached.
In later years, this road was merged with the Live Oak, Perry and Gulf–and that is how it is shown in SPV’s Southeast Atlas, though it was operated, for a time as the Live Oak, Perry & South Georgia Railway after the merger.
In 1943, the Live Oak, Perry & Gulf Railroad had mixed train service for 44.0 miles from Live Oak, Florida, where it connected with the ACL and the SAL to Perry, Florida, where it connected with the ACL and the South Georgia and continued with freight service another 3.0 miles ro Springdale. At Mayo Jct. (m.p. 20.7), it had a 12.0 mile line with mixed service to Mayo.
The road began life in the mid-eighteen nineties as a logging road in and near Live Oak, By 1903, it had been extended to, and across the Suwannee River. In 1903, at the request of the then president of the SAL, it became a common carrier, incorporated as the Live Oak & Perry Railroad. However, the then SAL president was removed from that post (he then proceeded to form the Georgia and Florida Railroad).
Soon thereafter, the ACL took an interest in this short road, and financed its construction on to Perry and other branches, including the one to Mayo. Some how, the charter of the road had not been well written, and a new corporation, the Live Oak, Perry & Gulf Railroad was chartered, it bought the property of the LO&P in 1906.
The road prospered, carrying not only lumber but also local produce and limestone (for highway construction) from a quarry. In 1918 the ACL bought the road and operated it as an affiliated shortline, but in 1927 the ACL completed its Perry Cutoff, and no longer felt a need for this road–and it was sold to a lumber consortium which also bought the South Georgia in 1946.
In 1971, the Southern bought the two roads, and merged them into the Georgia Southern and Florida. http://www.taplines.net/July/LOPG1.htm
Along the way to being merged into the GS&F, the road was named the Live Oak, Perry & South Georgia 12/31/71, and was operated by the Southern ( which became a part of the new Norfolk Southern). http://railga.com/lopsg.html
On 2/5/1994, the track from Adel to Foley, Fla., was sold to Gulf and Ohio Railways, and is now in operation by the Georgia and Florida Railway. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_Oak,_Perry_and_South_Georgia_Railway.
The G&F is now, even with the acquisition of such lines as the LOP&G, a shadow of its former self, which ran from Greenwood, S.C., to Madison, Fla.
Southern Railroading A to Z 11
The St. Marys Railroad, which is a trifle more than eleven miles long, plus a branch to a military facility, was the creation of a Confederate officer, Captain Lemuel Johnson, who in 1906 incorporated it as the St. Marys and Kingsland Railroad to connect it with the then SAL in Kingsland. (Wiki says it was founded in 1865–when there was no railroad in Kingsland; the Florida Central and Peninsular reached Kingsland in 1893. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingsland,_Georgia)
In 1911, plans were laid to build farther west, to Fort Valley, and the name was changed to the Atlantic, Waycross & Northern. Railroad.http://railga.com/atwayc.html However, apparently few people were interested in backing this venture, so the name was changed again, to the St. Marys Railroad in 1924. http://railga.com/stmaking.html.
In 1955, a 4.5 mile spur was constructed to connect with the U.S. Army’s Ammunition storage terminal at Kings Bay. Traffic on this spur has kept the road alive after the paper mill in St. Marys closed in 2002. https://www.american-rails.com/sm.html
The road also offers hour and a quarter tourist rides. http://www.stmarysrailroad.com/
The Apalachicola Northern Railroad (now the AN Railway) was built in order to connect Apalachicola with the outside world at what was then known as River Junction and is now known as the city of Chattahoochee.
I found three sites with information on the road–and they all differ in some details–and the mileage shown in the Guide does not agree with any of that shown in the accounts. The information in various issues of the Guide shows 79.4 miles to Apalachicola, and 102.3 miles to Port St. Joe–and Apalachicola is not on the way to Port St. Joe, and there is no mile post given for the junction (which seems to now be called Apalachicola, according to SPV, which also indicates that the rails into Apalachicola itself have been abandoned. And, none of the websites mentions such an abandonment.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apalachicola_Northern_Railroad
http://hawkinsrails.net/shortlines/an/an.htm
https://www.american-rails.com/apalachicola.html
Chartered in 1903, construction was begun in 1905, and was completed to Apalachicola in 1907. In 1910, the 19.8 mile extension to Port St. Joe was completed–which made paper mill traffic, both inbound raw material and outbound paper products, possible. I found no date given for the construction of the paper mill. Perhaps it was in 1933.
For several years, a through passenger train was operated between Apalachicola and Climax, Georgia, using ACL rails from Chattahoochee to the ACL’s Waycross-Montgomery line. There was also a connection with the SAL in Chattahoochee.
After the paper mill was shut down, the road struggled even after the Rail Management Corporation bought it in 2002, and renamed it the AN Railway. In 2005 Genesee and Wyoming bought it, and gained new customers, which ship chemicals, woodchips, lime, scrap paper, bauxite and lumber
So, after trials and tribulations, the A&N is doing well.
The AN's now abandoned line into Appalachicola split at Franklin, about three miles from Appalachicola itself. It's hard to tell from maps or even satellite images exactly where the rail line went in the town itself.
Deggesty The Apalachicola Northern Railroad (now the AN Railway) was built in order to connect Apalachicola with the outside world at what was then known as River Junction and is now known as the city of Chattahoochee. I found three sites with information on the road–and they all differ in some details–and the mileage shown in the Guide does not agree with any of that shown in the accounts. The information in various issues of the Guide shows 79.4 miles to Apalachicola, and 102.3 miles to Port St. Joe–and Apalachicola is not on the way to Port St. Joe, and there is no mile post given for the junction (which seems to now be called Apalachicola, according to SPV, which also indicates that the rails into Apalachicola itself have been abandoned. And, none of the websites mentions such an abandonment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apalachicola_Northern_Railroad http://hawkinsrails.net/shortlines/an/an.htm https://www.american-rails.com/apalachicola.html Chartered in 1903, construction was begun in 1905, and was completed to Apalachicola in 1907. In 1910, the 19.8 mile extension to Port St. Joe was completed–which made paper mill traffic, both inbound raw material and outbound paper products, possible. I found no date given for the construction of the paper mill. Perhaps it was in 1933. For several years, a through passenger train was operated between Apalachicola and Climax, Georgia, using ACL rails from Chattahoochee to the ACL’s Waycross-Montgomery line. There was also a connection with the SAL in Chattahoochee. After the paper mill was shut down, the road struggled even after the Rail Management Corporation bought it in 2002, and renamed it the AN Railway. In 2005 Genesee and Wyoming bought it, and gained new customers, which ship chemicals, woodchips, lime, scrap paper, bauxite and lumber So, after trials and tribulations, the A&N is doing well.
In the 1990's when CSX owned American Commercial Barge Lines (Texas Gas and SeaLand container shipping line as well). The AN participated in coal that orignated at CSX Ohio River coal transloading terminals and was barged down the Ohio, Mississippi and Intercoastal Waterways to Port St. Joe. At Port St. Joe the coal was transloaded into Florida Power & Light coal hoppers and the AN pulled at trainload to Chattachoochee where it was interchanged to CSX and a crew moved it from Chattachoochee to Jacksonville. Upon the expected arrival in Jacksonville a crew was called to move the train from Jacksonville to the FPL plant at Bostwick, FL on the A line. Arriving at the FPL plant the loads were cut off for FPL crews to handle and the previous days loads which were now empty were prepared and moved back to Jacksonville and then called through to Chattachoochee for delivery to the AN. This was a continuing 7 day operation, and at the time is was considered 'hot' so as to perform each leg of the operation with only a single 12 hour train crew.
Every other day the CSX Road Power would get fuled in Jacksonville - normally on the empty trip. For a while CSX tried using a Fuel Tender car with this operation so that fueling could be done on a weekly basis. Over time there numerous issues with the Fuel Tender operation and it was ultimately abandoned.
I have no idea what the true economics of this operation were, however, FPL must have gotten some form of rate break on this kind of intermodal routing to make it pay for them.
Subsequent to CSX selling off ACBL (and the other portions of the Texas Gas purchase) the move to Bostwick stopped.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Southern Railroading A to Z 12
The Meridian and Bigbee River Railroad came into existence as the result of the desire of people in Meridian, Mississippi, who wanted a rail line that went directly east from the city. Meridian already had contact to the northeast via the Alabama Great Southern, but this was not enough. However, it was apparently difficult to arrange financing because, even though the road was chartered in December of 1926, and reached Cromwell, Alabama, thirty miles away (and a connection with the Alabama Tennessee and Northern), in April of 1928, it was not until 1935 that it reached Myrtlewood, Alabama, 51 miles from Meridian. This terminal gave a connecting route to Montgomery that used the L&N to Selma and then the Western Railway of Alabama east of Selma.
Interchanges were with the Southern, IC, and GM&O (now KCS) in Meridian, as well as with the AGS in Cromwell and the L&N in Myrtlewood.
This route was highly useful to the L&N after Hurricane Katrina severely damaged the L&N on the Mississippi coast; it made it possible for run-through service to the UP to be continued via the KCS between Meridian and Shreveport.
In 2006, the M&B itself was damaged in 2007 when a bridge fell under the load of rocket parts that was on its way o the space launch area
In the 1960'a James River Corporation built a paper mill just west of the Tombigbee, at Naheola, and took ownership of the road. In 2005, Genesee and Wyoming bought the road soon after the M&B acquired the former L&N track to Selma and the former WRA as far as Burkville (14 miles west of Montgomery), giving the road 160 miles of main line. And the G&W changed the name to simply “M&B.”
Despite hard times, the Meridian and Bigbee has survived, and still serves its purpose: rail transportation.
https://www.american-rails.com/mnbr.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meridian_and_Bigbee_Railroad
The Mobile & Gulf Railroad was a road in west Alabama that originally served the sawmill of the Baskett Lumber and Manufacturing Company in Fayette, Alabama, on the Southern’s line to Columbus, Mississippi. In 1914, the sawmill was leased to W. P. Brown &Sons Lumber Company of Louisville, Kentucky, which, in time, proceeded to incorporate the railroad under the name Mobile and Gulf in 1925, and extend it to a connection with the M&O in Buhl, Alabama, giving a total length of about 34 moles.
About 1930, the Brown Wood Preserving Company built a creosoting plant in Brownville, about 11 miles above Buhl–and this provided the major portion of the railroad’s traffic.
In 1936, the sawmill in Fayette burned, was not rebuilt, and twelve years later the track above Brownville was abandoned.
In 1968, and again, about two years later, members of the Birmingham chapter of the NRHS were given permission to make a round trip from Brownville to Buhl and back, riding in a gondola (one or two rode the engine). It was an interesting trip each time.
The last steam engine owned by the M&G was a Mogul (2-6-0), which was also the last steam engine operated in regular service on a common carrier; it was retired in 1970. The road itself was abandoned in 1984.
http://www.msrailroads.com/Mobile_and_Gulf.htm
The Mississippian Railway is a 25 mile railroad extending from Amory, Mississippi, where it connected with the SLSF, to Fulton. It was built to move forest products from the Fulton area to Amory–and in 1944 the road began hauling bentonite from near Fulton to Amory; however in 1968 no more bentonite cold be found.
In the meantime, several industries had been set up in Fulton, so the road still had viable business to haul.
The existence of the road was threatened in the 1970s, not by trail advocates, but by the U.S. Corps of Engineers, which threatened to flood about 3/8 of the railroad with the construction of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway. However, local business owners and public officials teamed up and were able to prevent the sale of the land and, instead, bought the land.
In December of 2015, heavy rains caused such damage that service had to be suspended until in April of 2016, when all of the damage had been repaired.
The Mississippian operated steam until 1967, when its first diesel power was purchased.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippian_Railway
http://www.msrailroads.com/Mississippian.htm
http://www.djournal.com/news/business/mississippian-railway-back-in-service/article_543bd76f-5163-5b04-a0f0-24a59b306ad8.html
Something that hasn't been mentioned yet is the pre-Civil War 150mph railroad running north almost, if not indeed, on an airline routing from Mobile. I had no idea this even existed until someone brought it up at the little railroad museum in Pine Bluff, even pointing at the general path of the ROW.
This might have been the 'original version' of the Mobile and Ohio. Someone who knows more about it than I do should comment. But I thought then, and still do, that it would have been interesting to have true HSR running over a century before it would even be approximated in the richest parts of the Northeast.
By the way, those Central of Georgia 'Big Apples' were wartime-mandated copies of Espee GS-2s. There are typical rueful railfan stories that one of them, #451, was this close to preservation but...
Hmm, I had never heard of a proposed 150 mph train even being proposed in the era before 1860.
The M&O was chartered in 1848 to run from Mobile to the Ohio River at Columbus, Kentucky--and it was built so, and was completed 22 April, 1861.
It was as much an "airline" as many other railroads, but veered westward and ran up through Mississippi, veered westward again in Tennessee and again in Kentucky.
https://archive.org/stream/investmentinpost00sout#page/n0/mode/2up
https://archive.org/stream/mecheleciv_1961_19_5#page/n0/mode/2up
Hell of a note when a railroad builds a better Enterprise bridge than the Paramount prop department can half a decade later.
Mike: see what you can find out about that very interesting unit 711. Almost certainly has to be a Krauss-Maffei approach if 'modern' in 1961, but I have never heard anything about a passenger proposal -- which this is. (It bears a little resemblance to the drawings of the Ingalls mechanoelectrical 2000hp passenger unit ... but that would have been obsolescent a whole decade, importantly a whole decade of hydraulic-drive experimentation, before this article appeared.
The double-bubble roof to keep the overall height down is sure to be a giveaway somewhere.
Overmod unit 711. Almost certainly has to be a Krauss-Maffei approach
unit 711. Almost certainly has to be a Krauss-Maffei approach
No idea what you refer to. Does this from Santa Clara Block pertain?
https://web.archive.org/web/20090816021210/http://www.sbhrs.org/organization/block/08Summer_1.pdf
In the late 1950s diesel locomotive technology had reached its limit, and business for the SP was growing rapidly. Freight trains were getting longer and heavier, and SP had to use up to 10 locomotives to power long-distance freight trains. SP’s main workhorses at the time were the F7 and GP9 types, rated at 1,500 and 1,750 horsepower respectively. Although SP had a small fleet of 2,400 horsepower “Trainmaster” locomotives manufactured by Fairbanks-Morse, they were found to have problems that made them unsuitable for freight service and they were relegated to the SF Peninsula Commute trains. After much research, SP decided to experiment with diesel-hydraulic locomotives and stunned the railroading industry by purchasing three 4,000 horsepower ML-4000 type locomotives from German manufacturer Krauss-Maffei. Delivered by boat and unloaded at the Port of Houston, TX, in late 1961, they featured two Maybach 2,000 horsepower diesel engines and a Voith transmission. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krauss-Maffei_ML_4000_C%27C%27
What I'm referring to is the little pencil-drawing illustration of the passenger cab in the 1961 article you posted. It is possible this is just a fantasy drawing, but there are too many strange features that wouldn't be in a 'catalog' passenger locomotive offering even from Alco, and the use of number 711 at least hints at some underlying, now perhaps difficult-to-recover reason for something being numbered in that series. It is not any version of Speed Merchant or RP210 I can recall, and the 'double bubble' at the cab windows to decrease the absolute roof height suggests to me some kind of lightweight equipment, right at the high water mark of hydrokinetic transmission design for passenger service...
Overmod It is possible this is just a fantasy drawing
It is possible this is just a fantasy drawing
Think so. The artist AEJ, Alfred Eugene Johnson, Jr., class of '61, also did the cover and the cartoon below. Decades later he wrote something about Walmart.
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/%27War-Mart+World%27%3A+New+Comedy+Takes+Readers+into+the+Workings+of...-a0190235175
Overmod Just for the record: the 'In the Heat of the Night' Sparta is fictional; the 'real' Sparta is much smaller and more rural. The depot in Illinois was probably used for the sign; most of the movie was recognizably shot in Hammond (Louisiana) and the TV show I believe in Covington (Georgia) -- the latter without the GM&O references.
Having been carried away with movie references elsewhere, I thought I should ask some questions here:
I assume it was the real Sparta used in the closing credits for "Heat of the Night".
This was one of those strange scenes that was completely unrelated to the rest of the movie, but which was an example of a very complex continuous scene. It starts with a view of Sidney Poitier riding in a moving GM&O coach viewed through the window and progressively pulls back to show the train hauled by a GM&O E unit (all in colour) then further back to show the whole train and then the town from above.
I'd recommend anyone to watch the whole movie just to see the final scene. I liked the whole movie, of course...
Peter
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czGLi3HU-Q0&t=6m36s
Southern Railroading A to Z 13
The Mississippi Export Railroad is a successful short line that runs 42 miles from Evanston, Mississippi, where it connects with the CN (originally GM&N) to Pascagoula, Mississippi, where it connects with CSX (originally L&N). http://www.mserr.com/
In 1922 the road was incorporated to run from Pascagoula to Luce Farms, which is about two miles from Evanston (the November, 1945, issue of the Guide shows Evanston as having two zero mileposts; one going down to Pascagoula, and the other going to Luce Farms; I could not find Luce Farms, Miss. either in Google or Microsoft searches). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_Export_Railroad
It had a much longer corporation history, going back to 1894, and operating under several names. http://hawkinsrails.net/shortlines/mse/mse.htm
The Columbus and Greenville Railway began life as the Arkansas City & Grenada Railroad on 4 March, 1873–and one year less one day, later was renamed the Greenville, Columbus and Birmingham Railroad. As a 3 foot gauge road, it reached Stoneville (10 miles from Greenville) 4 May, 1878, and from there to a place known as Johnsonville by 2 September, 1881. Apparently this is the extent of its track when the railroad was sold to a subsidiary of the Richmond and Danville and merged into the Georgia Pacific Railroad. http://www.msrailroads.com/GC&B.htm
By 1889, further construction had been completed, which linked Greenville with Atlanta, Georgia. In 1894, the Southern Railway absorbed the Georgia Pacific–and so, for a time, the Southern Railway reached Greenville, Mississippi. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Pacific_Railway
By 1894, the line was known as the Southern Railway in Mississippi, and so operated until local interests bought the line in 1924 (one source give 6 August, 1923, as the purchase date), and it was renamed the Columbus and Greenville Railroad. Apparently, it was during the Georgia Pacific period that the gauge was widened to standard gauge. http://hawkinsrails.net/shortlines/cagy/cagy.htm and https://www.american-rails.com/cagy.html
In 1972, the railroad was purchased by the Illinois Central Gulf, which continued to operate it. However, the ICG apparently thought that the road was not of great importance and it was allowed to deteriorate, to the point that in 1974 business interests bought the line from the ICG, and began operating it under its previous independent name–with CAGY as the reporting mark.http://hawkinsrails.net/shortlines/cagy/cagy.htm
In 2001, there was a washout on the line, which caused the road to suspend operations between Greenwood and West Point, interchanging with the CN in Greenwood and the KCS (former GM&O and former IC) in West Point. In 2008, the Genesee and Wyoming purchased the railroad.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_and_Greenville_Railway
According to the SPV Atlas, the CAGY abandoned its direct line from West Point to Columbus, and began using the KCS from West Point to Columbus, via Artesia.
Somewhere recently, I have seen that another road now operates what had become the KCS between Artesia and Tuscaloosa/Fox.
wanswheel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czGLi3HU-Q0&t=6m36s
At the very end of "part 2" of "the Making of" there are a few seconds of the view from outside the passenger car which began the scene I described. I had no idea that the movie won so many awards. But it was a good movie.
In 1977 Alan Miller dragged me out to Moss Point Mississippi where we checked out the locomotive facilities of the MSE. I think the Alco C420 and the NW5 were there but their pride and joy was a new MP15DC. It was a dull looking unit, black overall with yellow reporting marks and the number on the cab side.
I recall the place being in the middle of nowhere surrounded by scrubby trees.
We saw the big Ingalls shipyard in Pascagoula on the way back, with one of the big landing ships under construction.
On the way there we were pulled over by a local sheriff with a chrome plated pearl handled revolver, because the rental car had Louisiana plates. I showed him my Australian passport and he had fond memories of Australia from WWII so let us go unhindered. Perhaps I hadn't seen "In the Heat of the Night" at that time.
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