Nostalgia & History > Georgia Railroad 1970 Macon Branch on-line videos @ British Pathe

While killing time the other night I found 4 great videos shot back in 1970 on the Georgia Railroad Macon Branch. One may also be the Washington Branch, but not 100% sure.

You can access them two ways, thru Youtube or thru http://www.britishpathe.com

Can anyone pinpoint the exact locations of any of these videos? Also, it appears this footage may have been used in a larger production, anyone know what the film may have been?

First video is By Railroad to Sparta Georgia. It was mostly shot from the top of a covered hopper four gondola cars behind the three diesels.
http://www.britishpathe.com/search/query/By+railroad+to+Sparta+Georgia

Second video is titled By Rail Through Georgia
http://www.britishpathe.com/video/by-rail-through-georgia/query/By+rail+through+Georgia

Third video is titled Diesel Loco Georgia This video has very nice panning footage of GP7 1033.
http://www.britishpathe.com/video/diesel-loco-georgia/query/diesel+loco+georgia

Fourth video is titled American Goods Train. This video has footage of the heavyweight coach on the end of the mixed train.
http://www.britishpathe.com/video/american-goods-train-georgia/query/American+Goods+Train 

If the links do not work, type the title in the search boxes at either site exactly as I have them. There are more North American railroad videos on the British Pathe site.

Jay   

Edited for format.Even though all videos appear to have same address, all are different.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/08/15 07:49 by garr.

Thanks for posting these links.  These are excellent videos. They really capture the south, pulpwood, dirt roads, cotton gins, etc

Tom

Tom Daspit
Morgan Hill, CA
Tom's Trains

First video is on section of Macon Branch between Milledgeville and Sparta.  Line between Macon and Milledgeville long abandoned.  Line from Sparta to Milledgeville apparenly out-of-service with closing of a coal-fired power plant north of Milldgeville (on NS Eatonton Branch).  Relatively new gravel pit about a mile east of Sparta is apprently only om-line traffic.

John

I visited my daughter who is attending Georgia College late in September. The former Georgia RR tracks were rusty, more like after a rain, not near as rusty as I expected.

I have not seen the rock quarry in Sparta. Sounds like it is dead center between Camak and Milledgeville, so I guess CSX will keep serving it. It is right at 22 miles from Camak and 22 miles from Milledgeville. Is hauling rock profitable enough to basically keep a 22 mile industrial spur in operation?

Jay

DocJohn Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> First video is on section of Macon Branch between
> Milledgeville and Sparta.  Line between Macon and
> Milledgeville long abandoned.  Line from Sparta
> to Milledgeville apparenly out-of-service with
> closing of a coal-fired power plant north of
> Milldgeville (on NS Eatonton Branch).  Relatively
> new gravel pit about a mile east of Sparta is
> apprently only om-line traffic.
>
> John

Third video looks like it might have been taken east of Sparta along the Augusta Highway (GA 16) just after the trstle over the Little Ogeechee River.

JL

At first I thought the same thing about the third video. Though, upon a closer look, it appears that the train is on the mainline as there is a hotbox detector (at first I thought it was a block signal, but it is an early HB detector with the three lights on top) roughly halfway thru. Plus the telegraph lines have a large number of wires in some of the shots.

Yet the loco consist is the same as the train on the Macon Branch. Was the Macon Branch train originating in Augusta in 1970? Later in the '70s that was the case. However, if the train is on the mainline the scenery and lay of the land looks more like 278 west of Camak which is not between Camak and Augusta.

Jay

DocJohn Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Third video looks like it might have been taken
> east of Sparta along the Augusta Highway (GA 16)
> just after the trstle over the Little Ogeechee
> River.
>
> JL

Tend to agree with you that video 3 may be other than on Macon branch.  However, train could have been run between Macon and Augusta with video 3 taken east of Camak.

John

Shame that there isn't any sound.  Those three 567 (BCs, if they were upgraded in the same manner as GARR 1026) would've sounded great.  I wonder if the sound masters exist somewhere.