| Atlantic Coast Line Railroad | |
|---|---|
| Reporting mark | ACL |
| Locale | Southeastern United States |
| Dates of operation | 1900–1967 |
| Successor | Seaboard Coast Line |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) (standard gauge) |
| Headquarters | Jacksonville, Florida, Wilmington, North Carolina (until 1961) |
The Atlantic Coast Line Railroad (reporting mark ACL) was an American railroad that existed between 1900 and 1967, when it merged with the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, its long-time rival, to form the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad. Much of the original ACL network has existed as part of CSX Transportation since 1986.
Throughout its existence, the Atlantic Coast Line served the Southeast, with a particular concentration of lines in Florida. Numerous named passenger trains were operated by the railroad for Florida-bound tourists, with the Atlantic Coast Line contributing significantly to Florida's economic development in the first half of the 20th century.
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The earliest predecessor of the ACL was the Petersburg Railroad, which was built between Petersburg, Virginia and a location near Weldon, North Carolina and was founded in 1830.[1][2] A route between Richmond, Virginia and Petersburg was built by the Richmond & Petersburg Railroad, which was founded in 1836.[1] In 1840, the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad, at the time known as the Wilmington and Raleigh and renamed in 1855, completed a route between Weldon and Wilmington, North Carolina.[1] From Wilmington, the Wilmington and Manchester Railroad began operations in 1853 to Florence, South Carolina, where the Northeastern Railroad operated to Charleston, South Carolina.[1] In 1871, the W&W and the W&M (renamed the Wilmington, Columbia & Augusta) began using the Atlantic Coast Line name to advertise the two lines.[3] An investor from Baltimore, William T. Walters, gained control of these separate railroads after the Civil War, and operated them as a network of independent companies.[1] In 1897–98, most of the South Carolina lines in Walters' system were consolidated under the name of the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company of South Carolina.[3] In 1898, as the companies moved towards combining themselves into a single system, the lines in Virginia were combined into the new Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company of Virginia, and the lines in North Carolina underwent a similar process in 1899, becoming the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company of North Carolina.[3] In 1899[1] or 1900,[3] due to a regulatory climate in Virginia that was better suited to the company than that in other states, the ACL of Virginia took control of the other lines and subsequently shortened its name to the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company.[3]
In 1898, the Petersburg Railroad and the Richmond & Petersburg Railroad formally merged, and two years later the combined company took control of the ACL's routes south of Virginia, as well as the Norfolk & Carolina Railroad, which operated from Norfolk, Virginia to Tarboro, North Carolina.[1] These mergers created an ACL system reaching from southern Virginia to South Carolina and Georgia.[1] Additional small acquisitions took place in 1901, and in 1902, further expansion was undertaken when the ACL took over the Plant System, which operated numerous lines within Florida and Georgia.[1] This same year, the ACL took control of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, as well as the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway, though the two were never merged into the ACL and were operated independently.[1] The ACL acquired the East Carolina Railway in 1935, running south from Tarboro to Hookerton, although the 12-mile extension to Hookerton was abandoned in 1933.[4] The ACL's last major acquisition was the Atlanta, Birmingham and Coast Railroad, which it purchased in 1927, though the AB&C was not merged into the ACL until 1945.[1]
By the early 1900s, the railroad's routes had largely reached their final configuration, and the railroad began to focus its energies on upgrading its existing physical plant.[1] By the 1920s, the railroad's main line from Richmond, Virginia to Jacksonville, Florida had been double-tracked, which benefited the railroad during the 1920s, when Florida went through an economic boom.[1]
In 1928, the ACL completed a line between Perry, Florida and Drifton, near Monticello, Florida, the last link of the new "Perry Cut-off." This created a more direct route between Chicago and Florida's west coast, one which passed through Macon, Albany, and Thomasville, the route followed by ACL's passenger train The Southland from December 1928 to 1957 when it was rerouted to Jacksonville.
Florida's economy, as well as that of the nation, declined during the Great Depression, and though ACL's freight traffic declined by around 60%,[5] the railroad survived the 1930s without declaring bankruptcy; its success in this regard has been attributed to its leadership and careful financial practices, as well as owning the Louisville and Nashville, which remained strong through the Depression.[1]
During World War II, the ACL benefited from an increase of 200% in passenger traffic and a 150% increase in freight traffic.[1] This was due at least partially due to the railroad's geography—it provided an alternative to coastal shipping, threatened by German submarines, and also served the fast-emerging military industry in the Southeast.[1] During this period, in 1942, Champion McDowell Davis (nicknamed "Champ") became president of the ACL, and immediately began a program to improve the railroad's infrastructure, which finished in the mid 1950s, and included the rebuilding of several hundred miles of track, the installation of modern signalling systems and improvements to freight yards.[1][5] The railroad spent at least $268 million in upgrading its physical plant during this period.[1]
In 1956, the railroad chose to move its headquarters from Wilmington, North Carolina to Jacksonville, Florida. Jacksonville was selected out of three possible candidate cities, the other two being Savannah, Georgia and Charleston, South Carolina. Construction of the new office complex was finished in July 1960, with the move from Wilmington completed over the following weeks.[6]
As early as October 1958,[2] the ACL and competitor Seaboard Air Line Railroad had discussed the possibility of a merger, initiating extensive studies on the potential unified system. The results showed that the merger could save considerable money through savings incurred and reduced expenditures to the amount of $38 million annually.[1] On August 18, 1960, the merger was approved by shareholders of both railroads.[2] In 1963, a merger between the two companies was approved by the Interstate Commerce Commission, however, petitions for reconsideration were filed leading to a court decision to remand the approval of the merger on May 13, 1965, citing the Clayton Antitrust Act. Following another round of court decisions in 1966, the merger was allowed to be proceed, and did so on July 1, 1967. The result was the creation of the Seaboard Coast Line.[2][7]
During its early years, the ACL handled mostly seasonal agricultural products, but by World War II its freight traffic had become more diverse.[1] During the 1950s, around 44% of all freight traffic consisted of manufactured and miscellaneous items, while bulk traffic like coal and phosphates also expanded during this time.[1] During the 1950s, the ACL acquired some 13,000 new freight cars, to be used on high-speed trains offering reduced running times compared to earlier equipment.[1] This allowed the railroad to remain competitive in the face of competition from the Interstate highway system.[1]
The ACL's passenger traffic consisted almost entirely of Florida-bound traffic, largely from the Northeast, but also from the Midwest via trains that were operated by multiple railroads and handled by the ACL at their southern ends.[1] In 1939, the ACL launched what would become its flagship train, the Champion, and invested heavily in its passenger fleet after World War II.[1] Despite this, its passenger revenues fell from $28.5 million in 1946 to $14.1 million in 1959.[1] The service remained profitable through the 1960s to the end of the ACL, though, and until its 1967 merger the railroad continued to maintain and improve its passenger service, even going so far as to construct new stations while the rest of the country's passenger trains were in decline.[1]
Film
The railroad featured in Preston Sturges' 1942 comedy The Palm Beach Story, with Gerraldine 'Gerry' Jefferson (Claudette Colbert) getting a train from Pennsylvania Station.
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