Abandoned Rails The Tallulah Falls Railroad. Perhaps the most beloved of Southeastern rail lines with the possible exception of Flaglers Folly to Key West, FL, with one of the most peculiar histories, has to be the mountain short line operated for most of its life by the Tallulah Falls Railroad. Dubbed the Total Failure by wags due to its chronic financial woes and a handful of spectacular mishaps, it opened the remote, spectacular Tallulah Gorge, and several heretofore isolated communities of northeast Georgia and western North Carolina, to the outside world. For a while it made a very popular resort, which overlooked the gorge, feasible and accessible to the wealthy of Atlanta and other major cities. When the railroad reached its ultimate terminus at Franklin, the 5. Before ending its strange career, it served as a location for two major motion pictures of the early 1. As early as 1. 83. Layouts If you are interested to see what other modellers have made of the Inglenook Sidings concept Google or the web search tool you trust. Tabtight professional, free when you need it, VPN service. History of the Tallulah Falls Railroad between Cornelia, GA and Franklin, NC, with interactive map and pictures. Marias Pass Route X is a complete addon for the Trainz Simulator. All you need for the route is included. There are no additional downloads necessary. Atlantic seaboard to the communities inland around the Tennessee and Ohio valleys, such as that abortive project that came to be known as The Blue Ridge Railroad. The region of Rabun Gap, in northeast Georgia, one of the lowest and least rugged portions of the southern Appalachian chain, attracted much of this kind of interest, especially after gold was discovered in Dahlonega, GA to the west. In 1. 85. 4, construction began on the abortive Blue Ridge railroad intended to link Anderson, SC with Knoxville, TN. The state of Georgia got involved by chartering the North Eastern Railroad in 1. Athens to the proposed Blue Ridge line at Clayton, but no actual construction on the North Eastern commenced until after the war, in 1. By this time the Atlanta and Richmond Air Line had built a southwest northeast trunk line through the region. A road was constructed from Athens to the A RAL, and used trackage rights to Cornelia formerly named Rabun Gap, where it turned out again and headed north. Construction by the Richmond and Danville system passed the Habersham County seat of Clarkesville to reach the resort town of Tallulah Falls at the Tallulah Gorge in 1. Tallulah Gorge had been a place of awe to the Cherokee who ruled the region prior to the arrival of European settlers. The thousand foot deep gash in the earth where the Tallulah River rushes toward its confluence with the Tugaloo River is the deepest canyon in North America east of the Rocky Mountains. According to a Cherokee legend reported by an early explorer, the gorge was inhabited by a mysterious hostile race of little people. They supposedly trick or abduct hapless trespassers into falling to their deaths, or drowning in the raging river at the bottom. Trainz Station Not Working' title='Trainz Station Not Working' />There was outrage over the closure plan critics pointed out that this was a main line, not a small branch railway. The campaign uncovered evidence that British Rail. Approaching Tallulah Falls from the south, the railroad actually skirted the southern rim of the gorge for a short distance. The town of Tallulah Falls had already become one of the most popular vacation resorts in the Southeast by the 1. The arrival of the railroad in 1. Atlanta and Athens downright convenient. A number of magnificent hotels and inns catered to tourists and rest seekers. Key Recover My Files V5 2.1. The town boomed until about 1. During this period the shortline railroad was said to be quite profitable. Meanwhile, in 1. 89. A RL became part of the newly formed Southern Railways system. A seemingly unrelated innocuous event during that period may have planted the seeds of the short lines eventual demise. The Richmond and Danville system, later part of Southern Railways, acquired a rail line between Atlanta and Knoxville, TN shortly after the North Eastern line reached Tallulah Falls. This greatly reduced the motivation for extending the North Eastern road or attempting to revive the Blue Ridge scheme. The Cornelia Tallulah Falls section was put up for sale. The Blue Ridge and Atlantic Railroad, planning a Savannah Knoxville connection, bought the line but ran out of money. In 1. 89. 8 the Tallulah Falls Railway Company acquired the twenty one mile section then in existence from Cornelia to the town of Tallulah Falls. The railroad was continued north to Clayton, the seat of Rabun County, by 1. Blue Ridge Railroad project from that point northward. It continued over the eastern continental divide near Mountain City and reached Franklin, NC, in 1. At that point no investors willing to finance further extension could be lined up. There had always been ideas of eventually continuing construction north, perhaps to Almond, NC. There, it would have connected to the Western North Carolina Railroad, creating a through connection that might have generated more revenue. But Franklin remained the end of the line. Bf2 Maps Single Player there. The wooden trestles were a major liability for the railroad. Originally there were 5. Relatively weak, and demanding of expensive frequent maintenance, they figured in several incidents. Had the line survived into recent times, the wooden trestles would be grossly inadequate for modern high capacity rolling stock and large locomotives. Two spectacular trestle collapses in particular claimed lives, disrupted operations, and gave the railroad an ill reputation. One was at Panther Creek in 1. Hazel Creek in 1. It was this kind of incident, as well as the chronic financial instability, that earned the line its nickname Total Failure. Curves and steep grades were another Achilles heel of the shortline. From Clayton to Mountain City on the Eastern Continental Divide, the high point of the line, the grade rose 2. Southern Railways acquired the capital stock of TFRR in 1. The northward extension of the road did open isolated Rabun County, Ga, and Macon County, NC, to the outside world. Timber, leather, and livestock were local products marketed to the world on the mountain shortline. Geany Editor Windows. As is often the case, the railroad itself provided jobs including a demand for local timber for crossties and, in the early woodburning days, boiler fuel and other incidental benefits such as reliable fast mail service and a telegraph line. While the railroad continued to figure in various schemes to link to other lines and cities across the mountains, nothing ever came of them. The railroad first went into receivership for a short period in 1. The observant reader might readily see that the Total Failure was not fated to live long and prosper, especially once the resort lost popularity and the idea of further extension failed to gain support. The railroad remained a secondary branch line without the stable revenue of through traffic between major markets, vulnerable to the local economy and the inexorably increasing competition from cars, buses, and trucks, particularly on US 4. On the other hand, the multiple trestles, curves, deep cuts, and steep grades ensured high maintenance and operating costs per mile. That it lasted as long as it did is amazing. After the resort market faded, the six nearby hydroelectric projects of Georgia Railroad and Power provided revenues for Old TF into the mid 1. The 1. 91. 3 line relocation at Tallulah Falls, to accommodate the Tallulah dam and lake, required a new cut through rocky hillsides, and a new concrete and steel plate girder bridge the only such bridge on the line to replace the old wooden trestle and howie truss bridge. This raised the level of the roadbed at that place 5. The hydroelectric projects of Georgia Railway and Power Company that developed the water resources of the area to feed the growing demand in Atlanta were a mixed blessing for the railroad.