While on our trip back from Florida, we stopped in the small Alabama town of Georgiana, whose claim to fame is being the boyhood home of Hank Williams. While taking a look at his house, I noticed some tracks on the edge of town with some locomotives I'd never seen before. Turns out this is the headquarters of the the Three Notch Railroad, a shortline that runs for Georgiana to Andalusia. It's part of the Gulf and Ohio group of shortlines. The only information I can find on the unusual name of the line is that Hank Williams was married in a service station in Andalusia in 1944 and the service station was located on Three Notch Road.
There were three GP-38's on the property, one a patched out unit that had never been repainted and two that had been repainted but were not in good shape. The patched out unit was coupled to a gondola and neither had been moved in a long time based on the amount of Kudzu vine that had grown up around them.
There were also three ex-UP SD-40's down by the shops that I presume were bought for rehab but seem to be just sitting there rotting away. One was obviously an ex-C&NW unit by the grade crossing bell on the hood and all of them had the battery doors open, with the batteries either removed by the railroad or stolen. There was absolutely no one around that Sunday evening and stealing parts off the engines would have been easy.
I don't know if the railroad itself is still running. The two GP-38's that appear to have been in service the most recently are leaking oil and diesel fuel so badly that they are spotted over giant absorbent pads. The main line is still visible leading off into the woods from Georgiana but it's pretty overgrown and can't see more than one train a week at the most. There were some covered hoppers on the interchange track with the NS so I assume the railroad must still be carrying a little traffic.
For all you folks that like to paint and weather boxcars, there were some decrepit CIRR cars sitting on a side track that also have vegetation starting to take them over. The HS11110 was a particularly interesting combination of patch outs. partial repaints, rust, and grafitti. The whole scene was one of the loneliness and neglect that are so typical of a poverty-stricken shortline.
There were three GP-38's on the property, one a patched out unit that had never been repainted and two that had been repainted but were not in good shape. The patched out unit was coupled to a gondola and neither had been moved in a long time based on the amount of Kudzu vine that had grown up around them.
There were also three ex-UP SD-40's down by the shops that I presume were bought for rehab but seem to be just sitting there rotting away. One was obviously an ex-C&NW unit by the grade crossing bell on the hood and all of them had the battery doors open, with the batteries either removed by the railroad or stolen. There was absolutely no one around that Sunday evening and stealing parts off the engines would have been easy.
I don't know if the railroad itself is still running. The two GP-38's that appear to have been in service the most recently are leaking oil and diesel fuel so badly that they are spotted over giant absorbent pads. The main line is still visible leading off into the woods from Georgiana but it's pretty overgrown and can't see more than one train a week at the most. There were some covered hoppers on the interchange track with the NS so I assume the railroad must still be carrying a little traffic.
For all you folks that like to paint and weather boxcars, there were some decrepit CIRR cars sitting on a side track that also have vegetation starting to take them over. The HS11110 was a particularly interesting combination of patch outs. partial repaints, rust, and grafitti. The whole scene was one of the loneliness and neglect that are so typical of a poverty-stricken shortline.
