Atlanta & West Point

Company History: The A&WP was half of “The West Point Route” linking Atlanta, Georgia with Montgomery and Selma, Alabama. The A&WP covered the route from Atlanta 91 miles west to West Point on the Georgia-Alabama border. The other half of the West Point Route was the Western Railway of Alabama (or WofA for short.) Both West Point Route roads were controlled by the Georgia Railroad since the 19th century. It was common for locomotives of all three roads to be seen on each other’s lines. A&WP was the smallest of the three and had a fleet of just a dozen locomotives. Despite that, operations had a very “mainline” appearance.

The pride of the A&WP steam fleet included a half dozen heavy Mikados for freight and four Pacifics for passenger service. The replaced a fleet of nine 4-6-0’s and a single Mogul out on the road. 0-6-0’s and 0-8-0’s did the switching. The A&WP was fully dieselized in 1952. A&WP’s passenger service claim to fame was the Southern Railway’s Crescent, a New York to New Orleans train that traveled the entire length of the A&WP. This routing (which also included WofA and L&N) was preferred because it was shorter than an all-Southern Railway route and it served the Montgomery and Selma areas. This train ran until 1970. Since A&WP’s parent Georgia Railroad was controlled jointly by L&N and Seaboard Coast Line (previously ACL,) they all gradually adopted the Family Lines image in the 1970s. In 1983, all of the Family Lines roads were combined into Seaboard System.

Successor/Parent History: The Seaboard System Railroad, Inc. (reporting mark SBD) was a short-lived former US Class I railroad that was created after the consolidation of the Family Lines System railroads (notably the Louisville & Nashville, Seaboard Coast Line, and Clinchfield) on December 29, 1982. Under the Family Lines era, the railroads shared common ownership but used different names when conducting business. On July 1, 1986, the Seaboard System renamed itself as the CSX Transportation and absorbed the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway on August 31, 1987 which ended the CSX Corporation's shared ownership of the Seaboard System and Chessie System railroads.

Brief History: The U.S. is a country of 50 states covering a vast swath of North America, with Alaska in the northwest and Hawaii extending the nation’s presence into the Pacific Ocean. Major Atlantic Coast cities are New York, a global finance and culture center, and capital Washington, DC. Midwestern metropolis Chicago is known for influential architecture and on the west coast, Los Angeles' Hollywood is famed for filmmaking.