Georgia State Railroad Museum

FROM THE BACKSHOP For the first time in nearly 80 years, the Georgia Railroad car #67, aka the Augusta car that has sat in our shop, has its truss rod system back in place and is completely off any and all jacks. The truss rods and wheels were lost around 1941 when the car was put on the ground to serve as army barracks at Camp Gordon in Augusta Georgia. ... Now, in 2021, our crew came together to redesign, rebuild and install the truss rod system. This included blacksmithing/forging, welding, and machining, all done in house. We of course could not do this without the support of our visitors, and certainly could not do it without the talent of our crew. We are all very proud and very excited to see this happen!

FROM THE BACKSHOP PART 3 of 3: Going immediately from finishing one project, to the beginning of another, the Georgia Railroad 67 wooden passenger car is finally seeing some attention. We have plans to move this car to our paint shops, but in order to do so, we have to rebuild the ENTIRE truss rod system. Below are progress photos of the fabrication including stand offs, beginnings of queen posts, truss rods, and some original hardware that is being saved, restored and reused.

FROM THE BACKSHOP PART 2 of 3: GSRM crew recently installed an exhibit at the Pooler welcome center. Many hours went into this project and it could not have turned out better!

FROM THE BACKSHOP: PART 1 of 3 It’s so nice to be back and working again! Our crew has been very busy getting things done lately. With the addition of our new track, our plan is to start loading our trains at our historic storehouse. New railings and gates are being built right here on sight by GSRM crew members!

Congratulations to our Railroad Operations team, some of whom are pictured below at today’s unveiling of a scale reconstruction of a caboose they built for the I-95 Visitor Center!

We'll be closing early due to the threat of severe weather today. Please come back and see us tomorrow during our regular operating hours!

NEW Hours of Operation: Beginning November 1st, Georgia State Railroad Museum will be open ThursdaySaturday from 9:30am-2:30pm.

Visitors of the Day: Mike and Joy Anderson visited our site recently from Huntsville, AL! Mike is a member of The Central of Georgia Historical Society and Joy’s grandfather was a Section Foreman for the Central of Georgia in Wrightsville, Georgia, and for the Macon, Dublin & Savannah and Sandersville Railroad in Tennille, Georgia. Joy’s grandfather, Robert Lee Webb - or ‘Pa Webb’ as his family called him - lived with his wife in Wrightsville in a house with no electricity an...d only wood-burning heaters. Joy remembers visiting as a small child: They had a wooden house and a big pile of wood outside because everything was wood-burning. I remember they had a cast iron stove and a wringer washer with a big crank. [Grandma] didn’t use oil to cook - she used lard! Once her grandparents moved to Tennille, things were different. Their house in Tennille was much nicer than the house in Wrightsville. Joy believes her grandfather must have liked railroad work: He must have loved it because he worked for all three of those railroads. Mike added that there could have been other factors in sticking with railroad work: This was back in the 1920s and 1930s, and railroad work was a good, steady job in a time when opportunity was very limited. [My grandfather] would have wanted people to know that the railroad gave him a good living for a long time and that he enjoyed jt. She added that he was successful and popular in his community. There is a street named after him in Dublin, Georgia Robert Webb Road. Joy also rode the famous Savannah-to-Atlanta passenger line, The Nancy Hanks, twice - once as a small child to go to Stone Mountain and the Cyclorama and again as a high schooler on a school trip to Atlanta’s Rich’s Department Store. Mike has been model railroading since childhood and has always loved trains and airplanes. Mike was a Cub Scout in rural Kentucky and he remembers his troop taking a short train trip on the Louisville & Nashville. I don’t know if you want to put this in your post, but I swear the most fascinating thing for all us boys on the trip- the most amazing thing - was when you flushed the toilet it went right out on the tracks! Mike and Joy met at church and Mike was very interested to hear about Joy’s grandfather and his railroading days. I still do model railroading and when we got together, Joy said I could buy anything I want for model railroads as long as it is Central of Georgia. Mike and Joy said they are excited to plan some excursion rides soon when it is safer to travel. Joy exclaimed, It was kind of romantic to ride the train! Nowadays it is different and people just want to get there. We are happy to see museums like this keeping the past alive good memories for me!

Recognize the location in this promo for the upcoming Amazon Limited Series The Underground Railroad? Watch the full video for more views of Georgia State Railroad Museum transformed for this production!

Visitor of the Day: 94-year-old John Hinely, former Central of Georgia Savannah Roundhouse Foreman, visited our site recently with some friends! Mr. Hinely first began his railroading career with another railroad that was bought out by the Central. Even though he lost his job with that railroad after the buyout, he got a call from the Central of Georgia asking if he wanted a job with them as a Roundhouse Foreman. Mr. Hinely said he told them he wasn’t qualified: I have 10% k...nowledge [how to blow the locomotive horn and ring the bell] and 90% bull! He worked as Roundhouse Foreman here in Savannah for three and a half years and got to know a lot more about diesel locomotives. Mr. Hinely then told a story about an unlikely work friendship he developed at the Central. One night, I was sitting at my desk and I didn’t like the president of the railroad at the time - he was just really mean - but I had to go out to his house to install a dumb waiter in the wall. I was late because a rain shower came up. When I got to his house, he cussed me and I just cussed him right back! After that, he put his arm around me and said, ‘Son let’s forget this ever happened. I like you because you think like me - do you like fishing?’ We went fishing together and he took me and my wife out to dinner on his boat and we even played golf on Hilton Head. Later on, there was a letter that said the General Foreman was about to retire, and the Master Mechanic as well. He asked me, ‘Do you want those two jobs?’ I said I was not qualified, and he just snapped at me, ‘That is not what I asked you - do you want the jobs or not!?’ I thought for a minute and then said, ‘Yes, that would be nice to have.’ Mr. Hinely retired from railroad work in 1986. He lives here in Savannah and hopefully will become a regular visitor here so we can hear even more stories from his railroading days. He is pictured here in our Gift Shop, now housed in the same space that used to be his office!

We’re getting a lot of work done today on some of our railcar restoration projects! Our Railroad Operations team is currently inside our historic roundhouse steam cleaning upholstered seating for Southern Railway No. 1207, our 1950s segregated passenger car. Great job, team!

Check out our very own Coastal Heritage Society Director of Railroad Operations Terry Koller (bottom left) in this virtual panel session, part of The Railway Heritage Conservation and Restoration Colloquium, hosted by Museo Nacional de los Ferrocarriles Mexicanos!

A donation in any amount of your choosing to Coastal Heritage Society's Annual Fund will provide an immediate and lasting impact to Georgia State Railroad Museum.

Visitor of the Day: George Hofmann, retired Long Island Rail Road Machinist Federal Inspector, visited our site today with his wife Linda. Mr. Hofmann worked for the LIRR from 1978 until his retirement in 2008. I had only been 20 years old for a week when I was hired [first as a Laborer/Helper]. I cleaned shops, fueled locomotives, operated the turntable, and worked with air brakes. We were also responsible for adding sand to the locomotives and sometimes we would have to ge...t down in the turntable pit to put sand on the outside rail [if the wheels couldn’t get enough traction]. Mr. Hofmann said he started railroad work because it ran in the family: My father and grandfather had worked for LIRR; even my grandmother during World War II. The truth is that I always wanted to work for the railroad. After three years, Mr. Hofmann was promoted to Machinist Helper. We were allowed to take things apart but not put them back together again. Mr. Hofmann was then promoted and later retired as a Machinist Federal Inspector. That was when I really got to work hands-on with the locomotives. Mr. Hofmann said he only ever got disciplined for attendance early on in his career: For some reason, I really didn’t like working during the day. I was not an early riser and really preferred working overnight. During his tour, Mr. Hofmann was very interested in the history of our site and the belt-driven machinery exhibits on site at our museum. We had machines that were belt-driven and even an older Blacksmith Shop [like the one at our museum]. When they traded out the old equipment [at LIRR] for newer equipment, I was sad to see the old stuff go. Mr. Hofmann expressed that he misses aspects of his work for LIRR since his retirement. The only bad thing about it were coworkers who were not really team players. I miss the togetherness and working on the equipment. When asked what people should remember about railroads, Mr. Hofmann echoed the words of many other Visitors of the Day. People should remember the importance of railroads and how many of the cities people live in today were built by those railroads. Some people who work for railroads today may not even know what they are looking at [at a railroad museum] and how important it is. Mrs. Hofmann chimed in to add her admiration of her husband and his work: He always went above and beyond. That is the truth - any time someone called out, he was always right there saying, ‘I’ll do it!’ He doesn’t give himself enough credit, but I will! His own hard work is why he was successful, but you don’t have to put that I said all that. Mr. and Mrs. Hofmann are pictured with our Line Shaft Exhibit and with Savannah & Atlanta No. 2715.

Come out and see us for Labor Day!

Visitor of the Day: Rocky J. Screws, recently retired from Fruit Growers Express, visited our site this week from Woodbine with his son and grandson to check out our 1925 Fruit Growers Express refrigerated railcar. Mr. Screws started in the Fruit Growers Express Jacksonville Shop as a Helper, working his way up to Junior Mechanic and finally Car Mechanic. Part of being a Car Mechanic was repairing, painting, and decaling work during which decals were applied by hand. Sometim...es [railcars] would come in wrecked really bad. Mr. Screws also spoke about the historic graffiti in our Paint Shop: Some of it is really amazing artwork! When we would have [graffiti on railcars in for repair], we would only paint it out if it had really bad words on it, but otherwise, we would leave it. My work nickname was ‘Fat Pig,’ and one time all the guys said I had to come outside so they could take a picture of me with some awesome graffiti [on a railcar coming in] and it turned out it was a picture of Porky the Pig. Mr. Screws said his favorite part of his work was painting and putting on decals. His least favorite part? Welding! I hated that! Mr. Screws especially enjoyed his time on his tour of our historic Paint Shop. If I had been hired by the Central of Georgia to work here [historically], I would have done every job you could do over here on this part of the site [the Car Shops] throughout the course of my career. Mr. Screws said he still keeps in touch with his old coworkers from the Jacksonville Shop. You want to retire for years and years, and then you get there, and it’s hard. I miss all the guys I worked with. Mr. Screws created a Facebook group so he and his former coworkers could stay in touch and share news and photos. A lot of the older guys leaving the shop have taken a lot of knowledge with them. It takes your own hands to learn some stuff. The younger guys will ask, ‘Is there a handbook for this?’ and a lot of times there just isn’t. Mr. Screws is pictured here in our historic Paint Shop with his grandson Colton in front of our 1925 Fruit Growers Express refrigerated railcar.

Visitor of the Day: Edmanuel Ortega visited our museum with his family recently. Currently living with his family in Florida, Mr. Ortega is a Systems Engineer for Wayside Systems and first worked in engineering in Puerto Rico with electric transit trains, working for 6-7 years on mechanics, braking systems, and wayside hardware design. His current work includes signals at crossings and railroad switches: Switches today are mostly electronic or pneumatic, but there are manual... switches still in use in some places. Automatic switches can also be switched to manual during emergencies. Mr. Ortega said he was not particularly interested in trains as a young person, but graduated and saw an opportunity in engineering with railroad work. He came to our museum because his daughter (pictured with him here) wanted to come and see our site, but also because he was interested in how older systems worked. I have actually never been to a railroad museum before, but [my work] made me interested in learning about older train systems. It is very different! Mr. Ortega noticed our new manual switch we recently installed on site and expressed that people should remember that modern transit trains are very safe and something that more and more people will use in the future: Train detection is very safe [for passenger lines]. Freight often doesn’t have very many checks except for crossings, but transit has much more detection devices and is very safe to use. Today’s detection methods [part of Mr. Ortega’s engineering work] send information from the wheels to the track and there is a failsafe breaker [to help prevent accidents].

Great work, Joe!

We at Coastal Heritage Society are thrilled to have made the list for South Magazine’s Greatest Savannah Destinations for 2020!