Spotlight on the Sandersville Railroad

Two Sandersville Railroad locomotives. (Courtesy of the City of Sandersville via The Center Square)

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.

This article was published by Tales from the Rails and is republished here with permission. Click here to view the original.

Railfanning Review Podcast

Before you copy and paste this information to your website, please keep in mind this research took a lot of effort. Appreciate it. Learn from it. But do not plagiarize it. Yes, if you think we might be talking to you, we are.

Avatar photo
About Todd DeFeo 442 Articles
Todd DeFeo loves to travel anywhere, anytime, taking pictures and notes. An award-winning reporter, Todd revels in the experience and the fact that every place has a story to tell. He is owner of The DeFeo Groupe and also edits Express Telegraph and The Travel Trolley.