Last Train in America - Georgia Railroad

[@Rosa-lv8yw]

Coming back to these videos to watch again :)

[@PeterT1981]

Very well researched. Nice narration. I remember my mom driving my oldest brother (College aged) to a rail station to catch a mix train to Augusta. I think the station was in Decatur somewhere. I may be wrong. I was only 8 at the time. I remember when we went to pick him up upon his return he could do nothing but complain about the trip. The rail car was filthy. The stench of sewage was unbearable. The bathroom unusable. No air conditioning. No announcements about stations. Sitting for long periods in the hot Georgia sun. Seats that were faded and caked in human sweat and residue. He would tell that story about that trip any time I mentioned one of my many train journeys over the subsequent years.

[@zan917]

Found this video because of your hardtack tweet and now it’s my favorite channel.

[@maglorian]

thank you very much for this beautiful and informative series. the videos you upload are always wonderful surprises when I see them

[@davidstewart5694]

In the last couple years, passengers had to keep the car clean themselves. The freight crew made sure they used every minute of their 14 hour clock. Originally the GA RR didn't go past Rutledge. Later it was extended to Atlanta after it became the terminals of choice for railroads building in and out of the state. Atlanta didn't exist yet when the garr began construction from Augusta.

[@tonypanzarella9387]

It is very encouraging that someone so young has taken such an interest in these things. Best wishes for the greatest success in all of your life's efforts.

[@expletivedeleted7853]

The Soo line ran a mixed train into the 80’s I believe… somewhere way up north to Duluth.

[@erobinson1612]

It's so sad that you're no longer posting content any more - you were my favourite transit youtuber 😭😭😭

[@sergeykuzmichev8064]

Hope you make more videos in the future, you are the best english language transit youtuber out there fr

[@ThatDangDad]

"All good things must come to an end, but sh----y things end too." Flawless writing.

[@thelastchancebandtiftonga8948]

I always enjoyed my ride on the Ga RR from Macon to Camak round trip. My father and I rode it every year in August from 1976-1980. We also rode from Atlanta to Augusta. Most times in the older coach cars but the last few trips in a caboose. Thank You for the informative video

[@thefareplayer2254]

The South Shore Line was technically private until the late 80s and technically intercity, but its more commonly considered commuter rail.

[@martinfaland4712]

and the funny thing was it was another railroad that was owned by the south shore that went belly up and brought the south shore with it that caused its passenger services to be operated by a government agency.

[@centredoorplugsthornton4112]

It was Seaboard System that acquired the Georgia RR. The tax exemption no longer applied so Seaboard System filed to end all passenger service. The Pittsburgh commuter line was on the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie, sometimes subsidized by PennDOT, but last operated July 1985. Soo Line ended its ticketed riders in cabooses in 1986. A short line in Arizona accommodated riders in its caboose til the 1980s. Georgia's 2 streamlined chair cars are still around. The West Point Route car 120 is one of CSX's business class cars. Western Railway of Alabama car 106 ended up at Via Rail in Canada as a Via 1 business class car with food preparation galley.

[@jeffbutterfield3158]

Didn't the Rock Island run passenger trains after Amtrak came into being, not because they wanted to but because they couldn't afford to hand over to Amtrak?

[@robd8577]

Came here from your twitter. Great video, appreciate it.

[@lapiswake6583]

Very interesting. Of course, here in Britain our railways were nationalised in 1948 and were privatised in the 1990s (plus heritage lines started appearing in the 60s, and narrow gauge lines mostly weren't included in the nationalisation so were always private). I don't know of any mixed traffic trains in the UK like this since at least the 1930s, except of course parcels and newspapers being on the same train as passengers sometimes, as well as the odd van wagon or milk tanker hooked up to branch line passenger trains up until the mid 60s. Very sad that the US's railroads are so slow and underdeveloped. But there again, the UK's railways are currently suffering from underinvestment with loads of electrification schemes and extensions being scrapped or cut back, and TfL are losing government support soon too...

[@hamburgerdan101]

the thing is Europe has older cities built before cars. Passenger trains would be useless to us Georgian even though we have the most track in the southern states. Once you arrive in a city here (unless its the historic part of savannah or a cities historic downtown) you’ll need a car to get anywhere. We have to redesign cities to make passenger trains at all useful in this state which is huge task

[@Flying_Skier]

I want to call this whole series Alaska Railroad erasure even though they’re some quasi nationalized railroad that was transferred from national to state control because I think they’re a cool railroad that isn’t part of Amtrak even though they do intercity services and aren’t connected to any other rail network

[@bigmoodenergy]

While researching I tried to figure out how the Alaska Railroad fit in, but the history online for it was really sparse. Maybe I just wasn't in the right place but I had an incredibly hard time getting basic facts on dates, ownership, and operations

[@Flying_Skier]

@@bigmoodenergy as I understand it, there were like three private companies that couldn’t really make it out of Seward, so then the Feds stepped in and built the entire route. Pretty sure the construction and operations were funded by Congress at that point. Then they operated it which is why it couldn’t join Amtrak, since it was already operated by the federal government and they didn’t see a reason to transfer passenger ops since they were operated in tandem with freight. Then some president, I want to say Nixon, transferred it to state control. Since then, it’s just been basically run as a private company, and I think its even been profitable since then. So technically it’s currently owned by the state, but it operates as a private company except the board is appointed by the governor but it doesn’t pay anything into the state. Somehow they’ve only tried to put it up for sale once and it got vetoed because I live in a state with very weird views on what the government should and shouldn’t get involved in. As far as I know they’ve operated the passenger side of things as long as the railroad has been around too, so it’s been continuously operating since the 1920s or so. The Anchorage Daily News did an article about the ownership structure a while ago but it should be pretty easy to find.

[@mitchellhorn1102]

@@bigmoodenergy I can get you in touch with some fellow Railroad nerds who specialize in the Alaska Railroad if you would like.

[@robertmoir5695]

I enjoyed your story Thank you I remember when commercial passenger trains were removed from service the early 1970s it was a hard time for me too I loved going away on the train as a youngster The Rio Grande the last commercial passenger train in service until April 23rd 1983

[@blujitsu2180]

I feel like that was an allusion to the PAtrain at the end… which is probably beyond the scope of this mini-series. It’s been excellent, though.

[@bigmoodenergy]

not even PATrain! This little weirdo, the P&LE commuter service: akronrrclub.wordpress.com/2020/04/12/in-the-waning-days-of-ple-commuter-service/

[@centredoorplugsthornton4112]

PATrain was subsidized by Port Authority of Allegheny County til it ended in 1989, outlasting P&LE by almost 4 years. The P&LE train to College was mostly outside Allegheny County and ineligible for PAAC support.

[@baronjutter]

TTD taught me that sometimes in odd situations... this is fine.

[@jmhuber1]

The Georgia Road really got the stepchild treatment from SCL, forcing them into using their main as a "bridge" into Atlanta without allowing them to charge a rate that made a profit. Any means of making bread was a good means in their case. The super mixed was originally supposed to be

[@bigmoodenergy]

there's a good PDF history floating around of the last runs of the branch and mainline mixed and you're right, it says that they had to borrow equipment to meet the passenger demand and ended up just throwing some empties on it to call the train "mixed"

[@sergeykuzmichev8064]

This was really fun

[@electrourbantrans1018]

Nice and informative video! Can you make a video about the end of interurban railroad era in the USA?

[@awjustus22]

Fantastic series!

[@ChrisNorthwood]

"all good things come to an end, but some shitty things do as well" 😂 seems to cover this service!

[@pessimisticvideographer5039]

Not only do I get to say FIRST but I get to do it on another great video

[@ladyjenna9814]

I love a Trans woman in transportation, like myself! I know one of the Gender Rebels podcasters also works in transportation. I wonder how many of us there are? Glad to know I'm not alone. What are your thoughts on the recent train robberies in major cities? Can you look into the history of train robberies? It's like the wild west all over again. Railroad companies will start hiring private security that will shoot on sight. (again!) They did it before. It will get very bad.

[@10Wk3y84R]

Baste

[@bjjt-nu9dx]

Huh?

[@Pensyfan19]

Great series! Thanks for mentioning Brightline at the end. I feel that privately owned railroads are the most efficient at running passenger services since they can rely on private investment to focus on one specific region instead of limited government funding to focus on the whole nation.

[@packr72]

There is no private investment for passenger trains, only real estate. Are you paid by Brightline to promote it? Most of Brightlines planning had already been undertaken by the state of Florida and even with that it’s taking forever to connect to Orlando. It’s not really an impressive system being diesel powered and slow.

[@pleasant_asymmetry]

The whole Georgia Railroad, WofA, and A&WP system was so sketchy

[@billbaber6653]

Good stuff like train

[@CarlMalings]

Of course the "super mixed" train was segregated.