Following on the heels of Images of Rail: The Southern Railway, this volume takes a more detailed look at a historic railroad that has served the South for over 100 years and continues to serve as the Norfolk Southern Railway. Included in these pages are stories of bravery in war and
ingenuity in peace. From 1942 to 1945, the 727th Railway Operating Battalion--sponsored by the Southern Railway--served in North Africa and up the spine of Italy into Germany. The courageous unit received a citation from Gen. George S. Patton for its involvement in the Sicily Campaign.

The Southern Railway was the pinnacle of rail service in the South for nearly 100 years. Its roots stretch back to 1827, when the South Carolina Canal & Rail Road Company was founded in Charleston to provide freight transportation and America's first regularly scheduled passenger service. Through the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Great Depression, rail lines throughout the South continued to merge, connecting Washington, D.C. to Atlanta and Charleston to Memphis. The Southern Railway was born in 1893 at the height of these mergers. It came to an end in 1982, merging with Norfolk and...

Kennesaw, called "Big Shanty" during the Civil War, started out in the 1830s as a railroad shanty town during the construction of the Western and Atlantic Railroad. In many ways, Kennesaw is a typical small town in Northern Georgia--it was built along the railroad tracks, cotton was the first engine of economic growth, stagnation occurred from the 1920s to the 1950s, and then it blossomed in the latter part of the 20th century as a suburb of Atlanta--but in other ways, Kennesaw is unique. The Andrews Raid, immortalized by Walt Disney as The Great Locomotive Chase, occurred here in 1862. In...