Seaboard Coast Line Railroad: Map, History, Photos

Last revised: October 15, 2026

The Seaboard Coast Line was the railroad that remained after the Atlantic Coast Line and the Seaboard Air Line stopped being rivals. The merger took effect on July 1, 1967. Reporting mark SCL. The slogan was Pulling For You! In 1968 the system reported 9,632 route miles in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida. General offices were in Jacksonville, at 500 Water Street. The Louisville & Nashville and the Clinchfield stayed separate operating companies. Family Lines was the marketing name used from 1972. The Seaboard System followed on December 29, 1982.

Seaboard Coast Line freight crossing the Durham and Southern Railway at Apex, North Carolina, in the 1970s

A Seaboard Coast Line freight crosses the Durham & Southern at Apex, North Carolina, in the 1970s. Warren Calloway photograph.

On this page: At a glance · The merger · The map · Passenger trains · Freight · Paint · Family Lines and CSX

At a glance

Item	Detail
Railroad	Seaboard Coast Line Railroad. Reporting mark SCL
Headquarters	Jacksonville, Florida. 500 Water Street, the Coast Line general office finished in July 1960
States	Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida
Formation	July 1, 1967. Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard Air Line
Route miles	9,632 (1968)
Gauge	4 feet, 8½ inches
Slogan	Pulling For You!
Principal lines	Richmond–Jacksonville–Homestead. Coleman–St. Petersburg. Hamlet–Charleston–Savannah. Norlina–Norfolk. Hamlet–Birmingham. Savannah–Montgomery. Baldwin–Chattahoochee. Plant City–Fort Myers. Durant–Venice. Hull–Port Boca Grande. Coleman–West Lake Wales–Miami. Richmond–Charleston–Savannah–Jacksonville–Orlando–Tampa. Wilson–Wilmington. Wilmington–Pee Dee. Winston-Salem–Florence. Florence–Atlanta. Brunswick–Montgomery. Birmingham–Waycross. Waycross–Albany. Albany–Dunnellon. Jacksonville–St. Petersburg. Dupont–Naples
Diesels	Inherited Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard Air Line fleets, then new orders and the 1969 Piedmont & Northern acquisition. Diesel roster
Passenger trains	Through May 1, 1971. Amtrak kept the Silver Meteor and the Silver Star
Successor	Seaboard System Railroad, December 29, 1982. Then CSX Transportation, July 1, 1986

The merger

The two railroads had divided the same states for sixty years. The Coast Line held the coastal route and the name Standard Railroad of the South. The Seaboard held the inland route and the slogan Through The Heart Of The South. Each already reached Richmond, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida. A merger was a way to stop maintaining two railroads into the same cities.

Talks began in October 1958. John W. Smith was president of the Seaboard. W. Thomas Rice was president of the Coast Line. Shareholders of both companies approved the combination on August 18, 1960. The Interstate Commerce Commission approved it in 1963. On that approval the plan of organization named Smith chairman and chief executive and Rice president. A three-judge federal court in Florida remanded the approval on May 13, 1965. Further decisions in 1966 let it proceed. The New York Times of June 9, 1966, reported that the same Florida court had ruled the day before that the carriers could go ahead, and that a Supreme Court appeal was expected. The merger took effect on July 1, 1967.

The Times also recorded two conditions the Commission attached. The consolidated system was to open the Jacksonville gateway to the Southern Railway for traffic solicitation, and to grant trackage rights at Albany, Georgia, to the Southern’s affiliate, the Central of Georgia. The Coast Line’s investment in the Louisville & Nashville stayed. The L&N kept its own operation, as it had since November 1902. The Clinchfield lease stayed a separate operating company. The West Point Route, the Atlanta & West Point and the Western Railway of Alabama, stayed outside the merged corporation as well.

By the 1973 report to the Interstate Commerce Commission, Rice was chairman of the board and chief executive, with his office address at Richmond, and Prime F. Osborn was president and chief operating officer, at Jacksonville. The operating general office was the Coast Line’s building at 500 Water Street, finished in July 1960 after the company had chosen Jacksonville in 1956.

The Seaboard Coast Line herald. Author’s work. The slogan on the mark is Pulling For You!

The map

What the new company owned was the two maps laid on top of each other. The Coast Line’s own route at the end of 1960 was 5,570 miles, excluding the West Point Route, the Columbia, Newberry & Laurens, and several smaller roads it influenced. The Seaboard reported 4,145.19 route miles in 1952. The merged figure published for 1968 is 9,632 route miles. The predecessor histories, from the Portsmouth & Roanoke and the Wilmington & Weldon through the Plant System and the line to Miami, are on those two company pages. Hamlet remained the inland hub. Waycross, Rocky Mount, and Jacksonville remained the coastal operating points. The 1969 system map is the picture of that first full network.

Official 1969 system map of the Seaboard Coast Line, from Virginia through the Carolinas and Georgia into Florida and Alabama

Official system map, 1969. Author’s collection. The coastal route is the former Atlantic Coast Line. The inland route is the former Seaboard Air Line. The Louisville & Nashville is not on this map as part of the operating company.

In 1969 the Coast Line also took the Piedmont & Northern, the dieselized interurban in the Carolinas. Stockholders of both companies had approved that merger on February 13, 1968, subject to the Commission. Ten RS3s came with the property, and so did the Piedmont’s S4s and two C420s. They are on the diesel roster. The freight at the top of this page is crossing the Durham & Southern at Apex, a different Carolina short line.

Passenger trains

Florida passenger service was still the public face of the railroad in 1969. North of Richmond the trains used the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac, and beyond Washington the Pennsylvania Railroad, later Penn Central. The named trains that year were the Florida Special, New York–Washington–Miami; the Silver Meteor, the same route; the Silver Star, New York–Washington–Miami, Tampa, and St. Petersburg; the Champion, to Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Naples; the Palmland, to Raleigh, Hamlet, and Columbia; the Gulf Coast Special, to Savannah and Jacksonville; the Everglades, Washington–Charleston–Savannah–Jacksonville; the City of Miami, Chicago and St. Louis through Birmingham to Miami and St. Petersburg; the South Wind, Chicago–Louisville–Montgomery–Jacksonville and on to Miami and St. Petersburg; and the Gulf Wind, Jacksonville–Tallahassee–Pensacola–New Orleans.

Seaboard Coast Line E7A No. 568 with train 3 in the snow at Cary, North Carolina, in the late 1960s

E7A No. 568 with train 3 at Cary, North Carolina, in the snow, late 1960s. Warren Calloway photograph. Train 3 was an unnamed coach train between Richmond and Raleigh, with through cars as far as New York.

Athens, Georgia, in October 1967, with Seaboard Coast Line E7A 3041 on train 15 and GP7s 1795 and 1796 still in Seaboard Air Line numbers

Athens, Georgia, October 1967. E7A No. 3041 with train 15, and GP7s 1795 and 1796 on a freight. Rick Burn photograph. Four months after the merger, 3041 and the two GP7s were still lettered for the Seaboard Air Line.

Amtrak began on May 1, 1971. The Coast Line’s own passenger trains ended that day. The Silver Meteor and the Silver Star were among the trains Amtrak kept, and they still use the former Seaboard route through the Carolinas. The Florida East Coast, which had been the way into Miami for some of the older Florida trains, was outside the merger and outside Amtrak’s first map.

Freight

Freight was the reason the two maps were worth combining. Phosphate, paper, perishables, and general merchandise moved both ways, and coal off the Clinchfield and the Louisville & Nashville reached the coastal ports and the power plants over Coast Line rails. Trailer-on-flatcar service, begun on the Seaboard in 1950, was already part of the inherited railroad. The first autumn of the company still shows Seaboard numbers on locomotives at Athens. The renumbering into the SCL series took longer than the corporate date.

Seaboard Coast Line SD45-2 No. 2046 with a Pennyroyal coal train at the Hamlet interlocking in April 1978

SD45-2 No. 2046 waits to cross the diamond at Hamlet, North Carolina, with a Pennyroyal coal train, April 1978. Warren Calloway photograph. No. 2046 is in the 2045–2059 group, built in August and September 1974.

Seaboard Coast Line GP40 No. 1564 leading a freight at Boylan Junction in Raleigh, about to cross the Southern Railway

GP40 No. 1564 at Boylan Junction, Raleigh, about to cross the Southern Railway, with a Southern local waiting. Warren Calloway photograph. No. 1564 is one of the former Seaboard GP40s 630–650, SCL 1545–1565.

Frisco GP35 No. 718 and other Frisco locomotives in run-through pool service on the Seaboard Coast Line at Raleigh in May 1974

Frisco GP35 No. 718 and other Frisco units in run-through pool service at Raleigh, May 1974. Warren Calloway photograph. The pool kept locomotives on the train instead of exchanging them at a terminal.

Seaboard Coast Line railcar No. 4900 at Lakeland, Florida, in the late 1960s

Railcar No. 4900 at Lakeland, Florida, in the late 1960s. Warren Calloway collection. St. Louis Car Company, 1936, later re-engined with an Electro-Motive 567.

U36B No. 1776 at Raleigh, September 1971, a few months after it was built, in the Bicentennial scheme. Warren Calloway photograph. The Savannah photograph of the same locomotive, taken in June 1971, is on the diesel roster. The standard freight colors were black and yellow.

Paint

The first SCL scheme was the muted black and yellow the Coast Line had used from 1957, under Rice. The Bicentennial U36B was one locomotive in red, white, and blue, built in June 1971.

Seaboard Coast Line GP7 No. 914 northbound over College Avenue in Athens, Georgia, on the Central of Georgia, October 1977

GP7 No. 914 northbound over College Avenue in Athens, Georgia, on the Central of Georgia, October 1977. Rick Burn photograph. Black and yellow was still on the road in the autumn the gray Family Lines paint was going on new hoods. No. 914 is a former Seaboard Air Line GP7, from the 1730–1744 group renumbered 910–924.

Family Lines lettering is a later story. The name was marketing, beginning in 1972, for the Seaboard Coast Line, the Louisville & Nashville, the Clinchfield, the Georgia Railroad, and the West Point Route. The gray locomotive paint, French gray with red and yellow ribbons, came in 1977. Ron Flanary dated that diesel scheme in Railroads Illustrated for March 2010.

Family Lines and CSX

The holding company was SCL Industries, Inc., incorporated in Virginia on August 1, 1968, renamed Seaboard Coast Line Industries on February 5, 1969, with the Delaware corporation dated May 9, 1969. Its headquarters were in Jacksonville. Family Lines was the name on the timetable and the freight car, not a renaming of that corporation. The roads inside the name kept their own reporting marks.

CSX Corporation dates from November 1, 1980, the combination with the Chessie System companies. On November 4, 1982 the Coast Line acquired the properties of the Georgia Railroad. On December 29, 1982 the Seaboard Coast Line and the Louisville & Nashville merged into the Seaboard System Railroad. The Clinchfield operating company ended on January 1, 1983. CSX Transportation dates from July 1, 1986. The main lines of both predecessors passed in that order. The historical society for the Coast Line and the Seaboard, and for this railroad with them, is the ACL & SAL Historical Society.

Sources

Merger chronology as carried on the Atlantic Coast Line page: talks from October 1958, shareholder approval August 18, 1960, Interstate Commerce Commission approval in 1963, court remand May 13, 1965, further decisions in 1966, effective July 1, 1967. Route mileage 9,632 is the 1968 figure carried on this page. The 1969 passenger-train list and the principal lines are the same account. Railcar 4900, St. Louis Car Company, 1936, later re-engined with an Electro-Motive 567, is the same account.
The New York Times, June 9, 1966, “2 Roads in South Win Merger Bid.” The three-judge Florida court, which had stopped the merger in May 1965, ruled on June 8, 1966, that the carriers could proceed, with a Supreme Court appeal expected. At the 1963 approval John W. Smith was to be chairman and chief executive and W. Thomas Rice president. Conditions: the Jacksonville gateway opened to the Southern Railway for traffic solicitation, and trackage rights at Albany, Georgia, for the Central of Georgia. The Louisville & Nashville investment was not required to be sold.
The New York Times, February 14, 1968, “Seaboard Merger Advances.” Stockholders of the Seaboard Coast Line and the Piedmont & Northern approved the Piedmont merger on February 13, 1968, subject to the Interstate Commerce Commission. The acquisition was completed in 1969, the year carried on this page and on the Piedmont & Northern page.
Interstate Commerce Commission, annual report form R-1, Seaboard Coast Line Railroad Company, 1973. At the close of that year W. Thomas Rice was chairman and chief executive, office address Richmond, and Prime F. Osborn was president and chief operating and administrative officer, Jacksonville.
Seaboard Coast Line Industries: SCL Industries, Inc., incorporated in Virginia August 1, 1968, renamed February 5, 1969, Delaware corporation May 9, 1969, headquarters Jacksonville. Family Lines marketing name, 1972–1982. French gray with red and yellow ribbons on the diesel fleet from 1977, Ron Flanary, Railroads Illustrated, March 2010. CSX Corporation, November 1, 1980. Georgia Railroad properties acquired November 4, 1982. Seaboard System Railroad, December 29, 1982. Clinchfield operating company ended January 1, 1983. CSX Transportation, July 1, 1986. These dates match the Family Lines, Atlantic Coast Line, and Clinchfield pages.
Atlantic Coast Line general office: the company chose Jacksonville in 1956, and 500 Water Street was finished in July 1960. Coast Line route of 5,570 miles at the end of 1960, and Seaboard route of 4,145.19 miles in 1952, as carried on those pages. First SCL paint was the black and yellow adopted on the Coast Line in 1957.

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