The Georgia Historic Preservation Division, which serves as the State Historic Preservation Office for Georgia, determined the CSX bridge at MP A570.90 (Bridge A570.90) is a contributing resource to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP)-eligible Savannah, Florida and Western Railway in June While is the common abbreviation for the Savannah, Florida and Western Railway, the Georgia Department of Transportation study uses the acronym for the line. According to Appendix C of Georgia s Railroads, CSX RAILROAD BRIDGE AT MILEPOST A570.90 HAER No. GA-172 (Page 2) Historic Context and Statewide Survey, the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad (ACL) in Georgia is considered eligible in its entirety.
1 In this report, the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) recommends the former as a contributing resource to the ACL system. GDOT recommends the ACL eligible under Criteria A, B, and C, with a period of significance from to Under Criterion A, GDOT found the ACL system to have significance in the areas of Transportation and Commerce due to the role of the railroad in connecting port cities on the Atlantic Coast with the interior of the state, which allowed for the export of agricultural goods and import of finished goods that drove commercial development in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The ACL was also found to possess significance under Criterion A in the areas of Exploration/Settlement and Community Planning and Development, as numerous station stops along its route developed into towns and cities that continue to serve as commercial hubs and population centers. GDOT also found the ACL to be significant under Criterion A in the area of Ethnic Heritage Black, because portions of the system were constructed during the antebellum period by enslaved African American laborers, and the railroad corridors therefore serve as a physical representation of those laborers contributions to the development of the state.
GDOT found the ACL to possess significance under Criterion B for its association with Henry Bradley Plant, a railroad magnate who formed the ACL and directed its growth prior to his death in Under Criterion C, GDOT found the ACL significant in the areas of Engineering and Architecture due to its retained mid-nineteenth to early twentieth-century design, and the collection of extant depots across the state that reflect various architectural styles and construction methods.
2 The proposed boundary of the as delineated by GDOT, corresponds to the historic right-of-way of the corridor s contributing mainlines and main branches, and generally contain[s] all National Register-qualifying characteristics and features of the resource and include[s] the rail lines alignments railbeds any cuts, built up grades and embankments, buildings, such as numerous extant depots, 1 Georgia Department of Transportation, Georgia s Railroads, Historic Context and Statewide Survey, (Atlanta: Georgia Department of Transportation, Appendix C, ACL 19. 2 Ibid., Appendix C, ACL 15 19. CSX RAILROAD BRIDGE AT MILEPOST A570.90 HAER No. GA-172 (Page 3) or structures, including the s steel-framed, through truss bridge over the Satilla River into Waycross.
3 The Jesup-Folkston cutoff is included as a contributing section to the ACL. Therefore, as an original component of the Jesup-Folkston cutoff, Bridge A570.90 is a contributing resource to the NRHP-eligible ACL system. Description: Bridge A570.90 is located approximately 1 mile south of the unincorporated community of Trudie and 2 miles north of the unincorporated community of Raybon. Bridge A570.90 is a thirty-two span, cast-in-place concrete, flat-slab bridge. The bridge is long and carries one active track on a tangent (straight) alignment. The line travels north-south over two unnamed waterways in Indian Swamp, south of the Satilla River, through a wooded, visually isolated area approximately mile west of U.S. Highway The bridge consists of thirty-two spans, each measuring in length.
The maximum under clearance is The cast-in-place concrete deck measures approximately 15'wide and 36" thick. A total of thirty-one bents with cast-in-place concrete caps and two concrete abutments support the concrete and ballast deck. The bents are numbered in ascending order from north to south. The concrete piles of each bent are octagonal and measure approximately 16" wide. Six bents (Bents 3, 9, 15, 21, 27, and 30) feature two rows of concrete piles, while the remaining twenty-five bents employ only one row of concrete piles. The cast-in-place concrete caps are wide. Abutments consist of concrete back walls and wing walls, with timber guardrails topping the wing walls. The concrete wing walls are 12" thick.
Ballast embankments are present at each end of the structure, and ballast covers much of the retaining walls and end bents at both ends of the bridge. Guardrail timbers run the length of the bridge along the deck, helping contain the ballast, although several of the guardrail components are damaged. Each deck span is an individually cast-in- place concrete slab, with expansion joints visible above each bent. Impressions from the lumber formwork are visible on the slabs. Cracking and scouring are evident throughout the structure, and stacks of ties have been added as additional support near several concrete bents. 3 Ibid., Appendix C, ACL 11. CSX RAILROAD BRIDGE AT MILEPOST A570.90 HAER No.
GA-172 (Page 4) As a bridge type, cast-in-place, flat-slab bridges date to the first decade of the twentieth century. 4 As the simplest form of a reinforced concrete bridge, the form s popularity increased in but engineers had experimented with the form prior to In this bridge type, the slab is both the superstructure and the deck. Initially, simple span structures of this type had a span length that ranged from to a maximum of which proved to be economical and easy to erect. 5 Multi-span flat-slab bridges became common for road bridges from the through the 6 Character-defining features of cast-in-place, flat-slab bridges include the slab, parapet or railing, abutments, wing walls, and sometimes the piers.
7 History: Since the early five companies have operated the railroad alignment of which Bridge A570.90 is a part: the Savannah, Florida and Western Railway the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad (ACL; the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad the Seaboard System Railroad and CSX Transportation present). According to CSX records, the ACL constructed the current bridge in However, the owned the alignment until when the ACL acquired the company and its lines, meaning would have constructed the bridge while the alignment was still under its ownership. Henry B. Plant organized the in to operate and expand the Atlantic & Gulf Railroad (A&G) that he purchased at a foreclosure sale the same year.
The A&G was chartered in and, at the time Plant purchased the line, it extended 257 miles between Savannah and Bainbridge via Waycross and Thomasville. The line became part of the Plant System of railroads that extended throughout southern Georgia and northern Florida in the late nineteenth century. Through 4 Parsons Brinkerhoff, A Context for Common Historic Bridge Types, Project Task 15, (National Cooperative Highway Research Program, Transportation Research Council, National Research Council, October 5 Ibid., 6 Ibid., 7 Ibid., CSX RAILROAD BRIDGE AT MILEPOST A570.90 HAER No.
GA-172 (Page 5) acquisition and construction, the operated 569 miles of railroad by 8 The Plant System/SF&W completed the Jesup-Folkston cutoff in to expedite traffic along the eastern seaboard between Savannah and Jacksonville. The 55-mile-long cutoff is the easternmost of seven branch lines that extended from the s main line. It is a component of the present-day CSX Nahunta Subdivision. 9 The Jesup- Folkston cutoff was also the third branch the A&G/SF&W constructed to shorten the route between Savannah and Jacksonville, the other two being the A&G s Live Oak Branch between DuPont (Clinch County), Georgia, and Live Oak, Florida, and the s Waycross Short Line between Waycross and Boulogne, Florida. 10 The Jesup-Folkston cutoff was one of the final projects the SF&W/Plant System undertook.
11 In the ACL merged the Plant System of railroads into its operations, and the became part of a much larger system. The ACL originated prior to the Civil War with routes in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina and grew throughout the late nineteenth century with the acquisition of smaller lines in those states. Consolidation of various lines in Virginia and the Carolinas began under the ACL name in by the ACL extended from Richmond and Norfolk, Virginia, to Charleston, South Carolina, and Augusta, Georgia. 12 The acquisition of the Plant System allowed the ACL to expand into Georgia, Florida, and Alabama.
The ACL continued to grow its operations in the Southeast in the early twentieth century, labeling itself as The Standard Railroad of the South in the 13 The ACL added over miles to its system in the early decades of the twentieth century and operated miles of track by 14 8 Georgia Department of Transportation, Georgia s Railroads, Appendix C, ACL 3. 9 Ibid., Appendix C, ACL 5. 10 Ibid., Appendix C, ACL 13. 11 Ibid., Appendix C, ACL 13. 12 Wilson, Jeff, and Randy Rehberg, eds., The Historical Guide to North American Railroads, 3rd ed., (Waukesha: Kalmbach Books, 35.
13 Prince, Richard E., Atlantic Coast Line Railroad: Steam Locomotives, Ships, and History, (Salt Lake City: Wheelwright Lithographing Company, 14 Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Company, The Story of the Atlantic Coast Line, (Wilmington: Atlantic Coast Railroad Co. Public Relations Department, 13. CSX RAILROAD BRIDGE AT MILEPOST A570.90 HAER No. GA-172 (Page 6) While the ACL continued to expand in the competing modes of transportation were establishing footholds in the United States, specifically the automobile and passenger airplane. As highway systems expanded in the and railroads began to lose both local passengers and commercial freight to automobiles and trucking.
Following World War II, declining numbers of passengers caused railroads throughout the country to discontinue many once-popular passenger trains and routes. 15 The late brought the beginning of a merger era for railroad companies seeking to survive the changing landscape. The ACL, which had previously carried most passengers bound for Florida, began merger talks with the Seaboard Air Line Railway (SAL) in The SAL had been one of the ACL s primary rivals in the early twentieth century. Their merger in created the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad which eventually became the S in 16 In the SCL joined the Family Lines System, along with the Louisville & Nashville Railroad and their respective subsidiaries.
In the union of the Seaboard Coast Line Industries with the Chessie System formed the CSX Corporation, an entity whose structure took several years to solidify. The merger continued when, in the SCL and the L&N (still operating under the Family Lines System name) officially merged to form the Seaboard System Railroad. In the Seaboard and Chessie Railroads began operating under the CSX Transportation name. 17 CSX continues to operate its Nahunta Subdivision (originally the in Brantley County. Bridge A570.90 has been in continuous operation since Due to the age and condition of Bridge A570.90, the superstructure of the bridge must be replaced to maintain safe operation.
Planned repairs consist of the replacement of the cast-in-place concrete deck with precast concrete box beam spans, in accordance with current CSX standards, and the rehabilitation of select concrete bents. 15 Wilson, Jeff, and Randy Rehberg, The Historical Guide to North American Railroads, 11. 16 Yenne, Bill, Atlas of North American Railroads, Paul: MBI Publishing Company, 25. 17 The Emergence of CSX Transportation, history-evolution, accessed February 25, CSX RAILROAD BRIDGE AT MILEPOST A570.90 HAER No. GA-172 (Page 7)
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