Nostalgia & History > Georgia Railroad station in Decatur,Ga

May 78

The station in Decatur when the mixed train was still operating.

Gary

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Built 1891. Many restaurants have occupied the station since these photos. Team track is gone. Decatur was formerly the east end of double track from downtown Atlanta; the second track was cut back about a mile in the 1970s. 

Good looking station.
Bob

Great group of photos and nice station.  Is that an Atlanta and West Point GP in the first photo?

Rich

Yes, A&WP 576 which had been an SAL unit. It was rebuilt as a GP16.

Your photos capture the essential elements of this small depot and surroundings.
Thanks for posting your photo documentary.
ALLEN

As a kid, my parents would often take me to this station, (this would have been early '80s), to watch trains.  I remember a time when a Family Lines caboose and locomotive were spotted outside the station.  A crewman came down and gave us a tour of both.  He also gave me a small plastic bottle of some kind of juice or soda they kept on board.  I was probably no older than 3-5, but I still remember it, partially due to one photo that my mother had of our family infront of the locomotive.  

In the mid to late '80s, I rode past this station on the reer platform on a New Georgia excusion train, bound for Stone Mountain.  Our motive power was S&A 750.  My father and I had bought standard tickets, and we were sitting in the last coach infront of a private business car.  The coach was 662 (a car then owned by the South Eastern Railway Museum and painted in Norfolk Southern tuscan red for excusion service. It was empty exept for us, and as I sat back in the red plush seats, I pretended it was my own private car.   The owner of the REAL private car on the tail came through the door.  Seeing my father and myself sitting there alone, he offered to let us come ride in the dark green office car that was bringing up the reer.  I rode the rest of the way to Stone Mountian on that back platform.  I watched as we passed the Decatur station with 750's coal smoke trailing overhead.  I couldn't have been more than 9, as I believe 750 went out of service in 1989. 

When I was about 15, I played guitar and sang at an open mic night in that same depot.  It was a restaurant known as the freight room and they had open mics once a week. There was an old guy there named George Mitchal playing washtub bass. (He would later become my high school photography teacher). 

In college, I went back to this station with a young woman and took many photos near the station.  It was a college photography project.  She wore '50s style clothes and carried a suitcase.  We did our best to recreate a simpler time, (while I did my best to impress the lady with my camera skills). 

I still cross the track infront of this depot from time to time. This station is indeed a treasure, like others like it around the country.  I hope it has a long life, keeping Georgia history alive, and creating memories for many other young men and women. 

Used to go watch some friends play at The Freight Room.  Enjoyed the prime rib sandwiches there too.