Macon & Atlantic Railway History

By Mark Mosely

The following is a short pocket history of this unique line of which I have labeled it as "The Railroad That Never Was".

The GS&F was built by the Macon Construction Company, which under the terms of its contract soon came to control the Georgia Southern & Florida and through that control ultimately to work its ruin. The plans of the Macon Construction Company did not stop with the GS&F, but were extended to the construction of a system of new lines reaching out from Macon as a center, to Florida, to Brunswick, to Birmingham, to Savannah and to a deep-water terminal which it was proposed should be established at Colleton, S.C. Of these lines those to Florida and Brunswick were to be constructed under the charter of the GS&F; that to Birmingham was to be constructed under the charter of the Macon and Birmingham Railroad Company, as found in an Act of Georgia, approved Dec. 26, 1888; while the line to Savannah and Colleton, S.C., was to be constructed under the charter of the Macon and Atlantic Railroad Company, which was obtained on May 24, 1890, under the general law of Georgia and subsequently extended by a special Act approved December 16, 1890.

Under the charter of the Macon and Atlantic Railroad (M&A) Company a line was surveyed from Sofkee east to Colleton, S.C., and work was begun at Bruton, GA, a point on the Wrightsville and Tennille Railroad. Grading had been done from Bruton, about seventy-five miles east, in the direction of Colleton, and about eleven miles of railroad were put in operation out of Bruton before the Macon Construction Company went out of business. The 1890 M&A Formation Papers listed the founders (W.B. Sparks, Jeff Lane and G.W. Gustin) cited the appropriate laws involved and stated that: "The Macon & Atlantic Railroad, said corporation shall be for the purpose of constructing, maintaining, and operating a Railroad of Standard Gauge from Sofkee in the County of Bibb to the City of Savannah with a branch to some point on the Savannah River in Effingham County."

Shortly afterward, the Macon and Atlantic Railroad Company was reorganized in December, 1892, as the Atlantic Short-Line Railway Company, which corporation during the succeeding four years extended the line from Bruton, in all twenty-eight miles, when the property was again sold in foreclosure in December, 1896, to be reorganized in March, 1897, as the Bruton and Pineora Railway Company, with the intention of Completing the line to Pineora, a point on the main line of the Central of Georgia north of Savannah. Before another foreclosure could be affected the property was purchased in April 1898, by the Central of Georgia Railway Company, which has since been engaged in completing construction to Pineora.

According to the 1895 GS&F Annual Report, 1/3 of an Office Car was reported as being used by the Macon and Atlantic RR in 1891. The entire line was surveyed and graded before construction was halted by the collapse of the Macon Construction Company. It is interesting to speculate what would have became of the M&A if it had survived and became operational. Sofkee Junction would have become an industrial suburb of Macon or perhaps become another Cordele Junction. There have been no reports as to what logo they had proposed.