(Railfanning.org News Wire) — The Great Walton Railroad Company has asked federal regulators to retroactively authorize its control of a Georgia short line it has effectively run for a quarter-century without the required approval.
The company told the Surface Transportation Board in a filing this month that the omission was a mistake, not an attempt to dodge oversight.
Unless someone objects, the request needs no formal Board approval — it takes effect automatically Oct. 4 under a self-executing exemption process. Parties who want to challenge it, including on behalf of affected rail workers, have until Sept. 25 to ask the Board to intervene.
Great Walton and the Athens Line have been linked since 2001, when Athens Line leased the tracks from Norfolk Southern and the Central of Georgia Railroad under an operating contract with Great Walton; Athens Line bought the line outright in 2017. Part of that network has sat idle since 2019, when Athens Line dropped service on a 13.8-mile stretch between Bishop and Athens for lack of business.
This is the second time in recent years Great Walton has needed after-the-fact permission to formalize control of one of its short lines — the Board granted similar authority over the Hartwell Railroad Company in 2022. That was also the year Great Walton’s longtime owner, Bennie Ray Anderson Sr., died, though the STB filing does not link the two.
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