Central of Georgia Railway: Map, Logo, History, Rosters

Last revised: October 6, 2026

The Central of Georgia Railway tied Savannah to the middle of its namesake state, then reached Atlanta, Columbus, Birmingham, Montgomery, Andalusia, and Chattanooga. It was born of a port’s fear. In 1833 Savannah watched Charleston finish a railroad to the Savannah River, and the city’s merchants chartered a line of their own toward Macon.

What passengers and shippers later knew as the Central was a new company, incorporated on October 17, 1895, after the old Central Rail Road & Banking Company of Georgia had been sold out of receivership. The map still branched from Macon. Cotton, merchandise, coal, steel, and forest products kept the property profitable enough to attract E. H. Harriman, the Illinois Central, the Frisco, and at last the Southern. The Southern Railway took control on June 17, 1963. The corporate name is still on Norfolk Southern’s books.

A pair of Central of Georgia E7As in fading paint at Atlanta Terminal Station on April 12, 1963. Roger Puta photo.

On this page: At a glance · Savannah’s railroad · Civil War and the branches · 1895 · Passenger trains · Steam and diesel · Southern Railway

A port answers Charleston

Richard Prince, in Central of Georgia Railway and Connecting Lines, starts where Savannah started. The city was laid out in 1733 as Georgia’s first colonial capital, and the river at its door made it a southern port of long standing. That position was in doubt when the South Carolina Canal and Rail Road Company opened its first six miles west of Charleston in 1830. In October 1833 the South Carolina company finished 136 miles to Hamburg, across the Savannah River from Augusta. It was then the longest railroad in the country, and it began to pull trade away from Savannah.

Port cities along the Atlantic were competing for the transatlantic trade, and Savannah’s business leaders treated the new machine as the future of it. Their Central Rail Road & Canal Company was chartered on December 20, 1833, aimed at Macon, near the center of the state.

Surveys came in 1834. Construction began in December 1835, and during that work the company became the Central Rail Road & Banking Company of Georgia. The new name was a financing device. Banking powers were the bait for capital the railroad was having trouble raising. The Panic of 1837 and the rough practice of early construction still slowed the job. Within a year about 26 miles were open, much of it wooden stringers topped with strap iron. Iron T-rail came later. By the spring of 1839, 76 miles were finished. In October 1843 the track reached the east bank of the Ocmulgee River, about a mile from downtown Macon. The river was bridged soon after, and the 191-mile route was open.

Central of Georgia Railway logo. Author’s work.

Once the line was open, the plantations along it filled the trains with cotton, and agriculture, passengers, and less-than-carload freight came with it. The company built its Savannah shops beginning in 1851 and kept them in use until 1963. The gauge was five feet from the opening through June 1, 1886, and 4 feet, 8½ inches from June 2, 1886.

At a glance

Item	Detail
Headquarters	Savannah, Georgia
States served	Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee (Chattanooga), Florida (Lakewood)
Charter	December 20, 1833
Dates of operation	1838–June 16, 1963
Reporting mark	CG
Slogan	The Right Way
Route miles	1,815.29 (1952)
Gauge	5 feet (1838–June 1, 1886). 4 feet, 8½ inches (June 2, 1886–June 16, 1963)
Principal lines	Savannah–Macon–Atlanta. Griffin–Chattanooga. Macon–Athens. Macon–Albany–Dothan–Lockhart. Smithville–Montgomery. Macon–Birmingham. Raymond–Columbus–Union Springs–Andalusia
Steam	Post-1900 class grid. Last steam May 1953
Diesel	All-time diesel roster. First was SW1 No. 1 in August 1939
Successor	Southern Railway, June 17, 1963. Renamed the Central of Georgia Railroad in 1971. Still a Norfolk Southern subsidiary on paper

Branches, then Sherman’s march

Expansion came by buying smaller railroads. In 1855 the company took the Milledgeville & Gordon, 17 miles from a connection at Gordon to Milledgeville, and the Eatonton Branch. The Eatonton Branch was leased first and bought in 1897, under the Central of Georgia Railway name. It ran 22 miles from Milledgeville north to Eatonton. In 1862 the company leased the Augusta & Savannah Railroad, earlier the Augusta & Waynesboro, 53 miles from Augusta to an interchange at Millen.

The railroad sat deep in the Confederacy and escaped serious damage through the first three years of the Civil War. In the summer of 1864 General Sherman besieged Atlanta and then marched to the sea. Detachments tore up the western end of the line around Macon and Gordon. After Atlanta fell, the main body wrecked the eastern end on the way to Savannah. Prince notes that the full wartime loss was never totaled. The company did report that more than $1.3 million was required to rebuild bridges, track, and buildings. It was moving freight again, and buying railroads again, with surprising speed.

The first postwar acquisition was the South Western Railroad, leased on December 1, 1869. The 258-mile system was itself a gathering of smaller roads. It met the Central at Macon and ran south to Albany and west to Columbus. From Smithville, on the Albany line, it reached Eufaula at the Alabama line and a connection with the Montgomery & Eufaula, whose own line was finished in 1870. The Montgomery & Eufaula failed later in the decade. The Central bought it at foreclosure on May 1, 1879, and renamed it the Montgomery & Eufaula Railway.

Central of Georgia RS3 No. 141 ahead of a way freight near Farmington, Georgia, on November 25, 1967

RS3 No. 141 ahead of a way freight near Farmington, Georgia, on November 25, 1967. Roger Puta photo.

In 1872 the Central added the Macon & Western and that road’s subsidiary, the Savannah, Griffin & North Alabama. The Macon & Western had been the first railroad out of Macon. It opened 26 miles to Forsyth on December 10, 1838, as the Monroe Rail Road & Banking Company, failed, and was reorganized in December 1845 under the Macon & Western name. On September 4, 1846, it reached a place called Terminus and an interchange with the Georgia Railroad & Banking Company, later part of the West Point Route, and the Western & Atlantic, later the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis. Terminus had been renamed Marthasville in 1843. Dain Schult, in his history of the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis, says the town was named for Martha, daughter of former Georgia governor Wilson Lumpkin. In 1847 Marthasville became Atlanta.

Central of Georgia F3A No. 909 laying over at Birmingham, Alabama, on April 11, 1964

F3A No. 909 lays over at Birmingham, Alabama, with other power on April 11, 1964. American-Rails.com collection.

The Mobile & Girard came in 1870. It had begun as the Girard Railroad in 1845 and taken the Mobile & Girard name in 1854. The finished line ran from Columbus across the Chattahoochee at Girard, Alabama, to Troy by way of Union Springs, and it was complete in 1870. The Central leased it in 1886, extended it to Searight in 1892, and, under the Central of Georgia name, reached Andalusia in 1899. The original hope had been Mobile Bay. Andalusia was as far as the branch went.

The Savannah & Western, formed in 1888 as a subsidiary, was the next large piece. It bought the Columbus & Western, 157 miles from Columbus to Birmingham, with a branch from near Opelika to Roanoke. It also took the Buena Vista & Ellaville, 30 miles from Americus, on the Macon main line, to Buena Vista, and extended that line 35 miles west to Columbus. Savannah then had a continuous route to Montgomery and to Birmingham.

The last 1888 addition was the Columbus & Rome. George Hilton, in American Narrow Gauge Railroads, traces it to the North & South Railroad of Georgia, organized on August 1, 1871, by Governor Rufus Bullock to open the western part of the state. In 1877 it finished 23 miles of three-foot gauge between Columbus and Hamilton. Renamed the Columbus & Rome in 1882, it reached Greenville in 1885 and was merged into the Savannah & Western in 1888. In 1906 the line was standard-gauged and extended to Raymond, near Newnan. From there the Central used trackage rights over the Atlanta & West Point into Atlanta, an arrangement that lasted through the Central of Georgia years.

An official 1940 system map of the Central of Georgia Railway. Author’s collection.

Central of Georgia RS3s led by No. 155 running light through a grade crossing at Augusta, Georgia, in 1964

RS3s led by No. 155 run light through a grade crossing at Augusta, Georgia, in 1964. Bill McCoy photo, Warren Calloway collection.

The Savannah & Western’s last component was the Chattanooga, Rome & Columbus, acquired in 1890. Like the North & South, it began as a narrow gauge, the Rome & Carrollton, chartered on August 3, 1881, to use unfinished grading of about 50 miles between those towns. Service from Rome to Cedartown, 20 miles, opened in 1887 and then stopped. In 1888 the company was renamed, completed to Carrollton, widened, and built in standard gauge from Rome to Chattanooga. The whole line was about 140 miles. Under the Central it was the interchange with the Cincinnati, New Orleans & Texas Pacific, a Southern property, and with the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis, in the Louisville & Nashville family.

An official Central of Georgia system map, circa 1958. Author’s collection.

Sold in 1895, and a smaller railroad

The Central Rail Road & Banking Company went into the 1890s with a network it counted at 1,020 miles, and with Richmond & Danville interests in control from 1888. It was still growing. On June 15, 1891, it leased the Macon & Northern, 106 miles from Macon north to Athens. In March 1892 a shareholder went to court over the dealings of the parent companies. The corporation was placed in receivership and sold on October 7, 1895. On October 17 the Central of Georgia Railway was incorporated to take up what remained, and it began service on October 31.

The new company kept most of the leased and controlled lines. It lost the South Carolina trackage, the Port Royal & Augusta and the Port Royal & Western, which together had reached Anderson, Greenville, and Spartanburg from Port Royal by way of Augusta. It also lost the shorter Savannah–Birmingham path through Americus and Columbus. The old company had owned a branch from Meldrim, near Savannah, to Lyons, and had used trackage rights over the 124-mile Savannah, Americus & Montgomery to reach its own rails at Americus. That inside route ended in 1896, when the branch was leased to a Seaboard Air Line subsidiary.

At its widest the banking-company system, subsidiaries and leases included, was about 2,700 miles. The 1895 railroad came out with about 1,520. A few extensions were still ahead. On December 31, 1896, the Central added the Middle Georgia & Atlantic, from the Milledgeville and Eatonton country to Covington, crossing the Athens line at Machen. A short extension to Porterdale in 1899 finished that branch. In 1900 the line from Columbia, Georgia, was extended through Dothan to Sellersville, Alabama, and branches reached Paxton and Lakewood, Florida, the Central’s only track in that state. In the 1940s everything west of Dothan was sold or abandoned. The 1952 system was 1,815.29 miles.

One small railroad came along in the 1895 reorganization and never fit the freight map. The Savannah & Tybee Island Railway had opened in 1887, 18 miles from Savannah to the beach, and was renamed the Savannah & Atlantic in 1890. It generated little freight. After a highway reached the island in 1923, the trains stopped on July 21, 1933. The right of way is now the McQueen’s Island Trail.

Central of Georgia E7A No. 802 with train 20, the Man o' War, on the Atlanta and West Point at Fairburn, Georgia, on October 26, 1968

E7A No. 802 with train 20, the “Man o’ War,” on the Atlanta & West Point at Fairburn, Georgia, on October 26, 1968. Roger Puta photo.

Harriman, the Illinois Central, and the passenger trains

Through the early twentieth century the Central was a profitable connector among the South’s largest markets. Interchange was steady with the Southern, the Illinois Central, the Seaboard, the Louisville & Nashville, and the Atlantic Coast Line. Freight was agriculture, manufactured goods, coal, forest products, steel, cotton, and less-than-carload merchandise. Several Midwest–Florida passenger and freight routes used its rails, many of them handing off to the Atlantic Coast Line at Albany.

E. H. Harriman took control in 1907 and sold his interest to the Illinois Central, which he also controlled, in 1909. The Illinois Central used the Central as its reach into the Southeast. The hold lasted until 1948. The Central had been in receivership since December 20, 1932, sixteen years, and the reorganization that year cut the Illinois Central loose. It also ended the Central’s long financial interest in the Western Railway of Alabama. In 1951 the Central bought the Savannah & Atlanta and with it a more direct Savannah–Atlanta route. In June 1956 the St. Louis-San Francisco tried to take control. The Interstate Commerce Commission refused the Frisco and, on June 17, 1963, allowed the Southern to acquire the road.

The Central’s own streamliner was the Nancy Hanks II, Savannah to Atlanta, named for an unbeaten Standardbred mare who had herself been named for Abraham Lincoln’s mother. The railroad also carried its share of the through Florida trains: the Louisville & Nashville’s Flamingo, the Seminole, the Southland, the Dixie Flyer, and the Dixie Limited. Trains 19 and 20 were the “Man o’ War.”

Central of Georgia train 10, The Seminole, at Opelika, Alabama, in February 1968

Train 10, “The Seminole,” at Opelika, Alabama, in February 1968. Rick Burn photo.

Electro-Motive builder photograph of new Central of Georgia E7A No. 810 in June 1948

Electro-Motive builder photograph of new E7A No. 810 in June 1948. Warren Calloway collection, Tom Alderman colorization.

Steam and diesel

The twentieth-century steam fleet is a class grid, with the 1925 numbers and the numbers the older engines carried before that renumbering. Cooke Consolidations of 1901–1903 were built for the Birmingham grades. Harriman Mikados followed the Illinois Central’s pattern. Ten Richmond 2-6-6-2s of 1919 worked as pushers out of Sylacauga and went back to the Illinois Central in 1926. Thirty-two Mountains handled the passenger trains after the First World War, and eight Lima 4-8-4s of 1943 were the last new steam. The railroad renumbered the roster in 1925. Every class built since 1900, with both number columns, is the steam roster. Steam was gone by May 1953.

Diesels began with SW1 No. 1 in August 1939. Ten E7As and two E8As took the passenger trains. Nine F3As were the freight cabs. GP7s, RS3s, GP9s, GP18s, and a handful of six-motor units finished the road. GP35s 210–214, ordered as GP30s, arrived in December 1963, after the Southern was already in control, and SD35s 215–224 followed in January 1966. The full list, with serials and order numbers, is the diesel roster.

Central of Georgia E7A No. 802 with train 19, the Man o' War, at Columbus, Georgia, in February 1968

E7A No. 802 with train 19, the “Man o’ War,” at Columbus, Georgia, in February 1968. Rick Burn photo.

A paper railroad, and a heritage unit

The Southern folded the Central’s operations into its own over the years that followed June 17, 1963. In 1971 the company was renamed the Central of Georgia Railroad after the Southern merged the Georgia & Florida, the Wrightsville & Tennille, and the Savannah & Atlanta into it. The name survives as a Norfolk Southern subsidiary, and Norfolk Southern still subletters some locomotives CG.

Before independence ended, the Central’s road power wore a blue, gray, and gold close to the Baltimore & Ohio’s, in two versions, one a brighter yellow with red trim and one darker. The E7s at Terminal Station show the scheme late in its life. In 1959 road diesels began to go to a simplified Pullman green with yellow striping, and the GP18s were delivered in that green. After 1963 many of the same locomotives received Southern’s tuxedo, still lettered for the Central.

Norfolk Southern Central of Georgia heritage ES44AC No. 8101 at the North Carolina Transportation Museum in Spencer on July 4, 2012

Norfolk Southern’s Central of Georgia heritage ES44AC No. 8101, in the predecessor’s blue and gray, at the North Carolina Transportation Museum in Spencer on July 4, 2012. Dan Robie photo.

Central of Georgia RS3 No. 116 on the Wrightsville and Tennille just west of the Oconee River in Dublin, Georgia, in December 1971

RS3 No. 116 on the Wrightsville and Tennille, just west of the Oconee River in Dublin, Georgia, in December 1971. Rick Burn photo.

Sources

Richard E. Prince, Central of Georgia Railway and Connecting Lines (1976), for the Savannah origins, the wartime rebuilding figure, and the shape of the predecessor lines.
George W. Hilton, American Narrow Gauge Railroads, for the North & South Railroad of Georgia and the Columbus & Rome.
Dain L. Schult, Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis: A History of “The Dixie Line,” for the naming of Marthasville.
George H. Drury, Guide to North American Steam Locomotives, revised edition, pages 98–99, for Harriman’s sale to the Illinois Central, the 1948 reorganization, and the end of the interest in the Western Railway of Alabama.
Central of Georgia system maps of 1940 and circa 1958, author’s collection. Route mileage of 1,815.29 is the 1952 figure.

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