Spotlight on the Sandersville Railroad
The railroad was the ultimate short line, a roughly four-mile rail link in Washington County, Georgia.
The Sandersville Railroad has been in the news recently for a case before the Georgia Public Service Commission.
The railroad was the ultimate short line, a roughly four-mile rail link between Tennille and Sandersville in Washington County, Georgia. Interestingly, it wasn’t the first rail connection.
Colonel John N. Gilmore of Sandersville and three others — identified in a newspaper account as Hines, Shubrick and Felder of Atlanta — appeared before Georgia Secretary of State Philip Cook requesting a charter for a three-mile line between Tennille and Sandersville. While Leonard Phinizy of Augusta opposed the route, Cook granted the charter on September 18, 1893.
By November 1893, Louis Cohen, the railroad’s president, traveled to Savannah to meet with Central of Georgia officials. The Central agreed to “furnish iron rails and equip the road with rolling stock at a fair rental.”
Workers quickly built the four-mile-long line.
On July 24, 1894, workers drove the railroad’s last spike. A “large crowd” of citizens gathered to witness the historical moment.
In short order, the railroad moved its first freight over the new Sandersville Railroad on Monday. With “careful and reliable” Engineer J.O. Wood at the throttle, the railroad moved freight for Holt & Bro.
The railroad paralleled the earlier Sandersville & Tennille Railroad, chartered on March 4, 1875, and opened on October 31, 1876. In February 1894, the owners of the 3.25-mile-long line sold it to the Augusta Southern Railroad, chartered in 1893 to acquire the Augusta, Gibson & Sandersville Railroad, originally a narrow-gauge line chartered in January 1884.
