SUMMARY
The Tallulah Falls Railroad operated between 1898 and 1961, providing 58 miles of short line rail service to the communities in Habersham and Rabun Counties in Georgia, and Macon County in North Carolina.
PRECEDING LINES
On January 27, 1854, The General Assembly of the State of Georgia enacted legislation for the construction of the Northeastern Railroad of Georgia, a railway that would link the towns of Athens and Clayton some 85 miles to the north. The Northeastern Railroad was intended to provide a connection to the Blue Ridge Railroad, which was already under development.
The Blue Ridge Railroad had been chartered to connect Anderson, South Carolina, to Knoxville, Tennessee, which would have provided a rail link between the docks of Charleston and the Mississippi River system, using Rabun Gap as the gateway into the southern Appalachians. Since Athens was already connected to the Atlantic via the Georgia Railroad's line to Augusta, connection with the BRR in Clayton would thus allow traffic from Georgia to also flow over the mountains to the Mississippi and its tributaries with very little of the astronomical development costs.
Contractors had been hired to work on the Blue Ridge Railroad over the length of the line, so even early in the project work was being done to enter Georgia through Rabun County from the east, then turn northward in Clayton. The project died with the Civil War line despite the fact that 80% of the grading had been completed by 2,000 laborers between 1852 and 1859, as well as construction of numerous culverts, bridge abutments and even five tunnels. It is an irony of this effort that Rabun County's two railroad tunnels are both located east of Clayton, east of the route of the TFRR and thus were never laid with track.
Meanwhile, the Civil War delayed the launch of construction of the North East Railroad of Georgia until 1870 or 1871. At last a 39-mile section was laid stretching north from Athens to the towns of Center, Nicholson, Commerce, Maysville, Gillsville and finally Lula on September 1, 1876. Construction continued north from Lula to Cornelia, Demorest, Clarksville, Hollywood and Turnerville, then Tallulah Falls was reached in 1882, just 10 or so miles shy of Clayton - the original destination of charter.
SOLD AND DIVIDED
In 1881 the Northeastern Railroad was purchased from the City of Athens by the Richmond and Danville Railroad. The Richmond and Danville's southwestern expansion from its home in Virginia included the Atlanta and Charlotte Air-Line Railway, which met the Northeastern Railroad in the towns of Cornelia and Lula. Most important for the R&D, the southern end of the line (Athens to Lula) would provide a gateway for its network into Athens, a hub of farming and industry at the time.
In 1887 the R&D demonstrated their focus on the southern section by selling the northern 21 miles of the line (Cornelia to Tallulah Falls) to the Blue Ridge & Atlantic Railroad, which planned to complete the route to Knoxville first undertaken by the Blue Ridge Railroad some thirty years prior to offer service between Savannah, Georgia, and Knoxville, Tennessee. This was a sound decision for the Richmond & Danville, as it put the responsibility and expense of developing the costly route through the Smoky Mountains on the back of the Blue Ridge and Atantic, while the R&D would continue to reap the flow of traffic that was already connected to their line at Cornelia.
THE TALLULAH FALLS RAILROAD IS BORN
In 1892 the Blue Ridge & Atlantic entered receivership, finally being sold under foreclosure in 1897. In 1898 the newly-formed Tallulah Falls Railway Company purchased the Blue Ridge & Atlantic's assets with the financial backing of the Southern Railway. Construction finally resumed northward under the new ownership, connecting the towns of Joy, Lakemont, Wiley, Tiger and reaching Clayton in 1904.
In 1905 the capital stock of the TFRR was acquired by the Southern Railway, a holding company organized by JP Morgan to consolidate the Richmond and Danville, the Northeastern Railroad, and many other railroads across the south. Though a wholly-owned subsidiary, the TFRR was largely allowed to continue to operate independently.
After reaching Clayton, the TFRR climbed on the roadbed built for the ill-fated Blue Ridge Railroad, crossing the continental divide in Mountain City ("Apex", at the time), then proceeding to Rabun Gap, Dillard and the Georgia/North Carolina line in 1906. The final 15 miles were covered by 1907, connecting Otto, Prentiss and the railroads' northern terminus, Franklin, North Carolina.
While plans were discussed to cover an additional 25 miles to tie the TFRR to the Southern Railway's Murphy Branch near Almond, North Carolina, these plans were never carried out, most likely due to the high cost of developing a route through such rugged territory.
A GATEWAY TO APPALACHIA
The "Old TF" was instrumental in ending the early isolation of these small Appalachian towns, as early travel into the area was slow and difficult due to poor roads and rugged conditions. In its heyday, the TFRR provided virtually all of the passenger, mail and freight service to its customers, including not only the bulk freight that might arrive in a hopper or boxcar, but also the packages and crates that might arrive by UPS or a trucking company today. For many families in these communities, the TFRR's provided the only possible source of cash through its willingness to pay $0.25 for every railroad tie you could chop out of an eight foot oak log. The line itself would also provide a conduit to market for sale of the lumber and agricultural products produced in North Georgia and Western Carolina.
Early on, the town of Tallulah Falls would experience a huge boom in tourism thanks to the railroad's ability to bring visitors from Atlanta and Athens to majestic Tallulah Gorge in a matter of hours rather than days. However the railroad was also instrumental in construction of a series of Georgia Power Company hydrolectric dams, the largest of their kind in Georgia at the time with temporary spur lines connecting dam construction sites with the mainline. The damming of much of Tallulah Gorge in 1913 essentially ended the tourist boom after a failed effort by one of the state's earliest conservation movements.
THE LINE DECLINES
The TFRR would follow the general decline of the railroad industry with the Great Depression and the post-World War II rise of automobiles, trucks and decent highways. The railroad operated as a money loser for decades, endured the high operating and maintenance costs associated with steam operations and the 42 wooden trestles located along the line. The much-declined passenger service ended ignobly in May of 1946 when a truck ran into the last of vintage passenger coaches, shattering most of the windows. Operating costs were reduced somewhat in 1948 with the purchase of two 500 horsepower General Electric 70-ton locomotives, allowing retirement of the remaining consolidation and "ten-wheeler" steam engines.
A measure of fame was provided to the Tallulah Falls with the filming of elements of the films I'll Climb the Highest Mountain and Disney's The Great Locomotive Chase on the line in 1950 and 1955. Apparently Walt Disney, who was a huge fan of railroads, expressed an interest in developing the line into a tourist operation, however no terms could be found to settle on the millions of dollars of debt that had accumulated on the books of parent company Southern Railway over the decades.
In March of 1961, a federal judge granted permission for abandonment of the Tallulah Falls Railroad. A last ditch effort by local businessmen to acquire the railroad fell through and the bulk of the track was removed for scrap metal by 1962.
