Pensacola and Atlantic Railroad

Pensacola and Atlantic Railroad
1885 map of the P&A route and connections
Overview
HeadquartersPensacola, Florida
LocaleFlorida
Dates of operation1881–1891
SuccessorLouisville and Nashville Railroad
Technical
Track gauge4 ft 8+12 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge
Previous gauge5 ft (1,524 mm) and converted to
4 ft 9 in (1,448 mm) in 1886[1]
Length161 miles (259 km)
Route map

FG&A
AN Railway
SP 842.5
00K 811.5
Chattahoochee
00K 801.5
Grand Ridge
00K 796.6
Cypress
00K 785.9
Marianna
00K 776.7
Cottondale
Bay Line Railroad
00K 767.2
Chipley
00K 758.0
Bonifay
00K 750.0
Caryville
00K 744.3
Westville
00K 729.7
DeFuniak Springs
00K 716.5
Mossy Head
fmr. Eglin Air Force Base Railroad
Shoal River
00K 700.8
Crestview
00K 680.0
Harold
00K 670.3
Milton
00K 668.6
Bagdad
00K 666.1
Avalon
00K 663.3
Pace
00K 645.0
Pensacola
Goulding Yard
CSX

The Pensacola and Atlantic Railroad (P&A) was a company incorporated by an act of the Florida Legislature on March 4, 1881,[2] to run from Pensacola to the Apalachicola River near Chattahoochee, a distance of about 160 miles (260 km). No railroad had ever been built across the sparsely populated panhandle of Florida, which left Pensacola isolated from the rest of the state.[3] William D. Chipley and Frederick R. De Funiak, both of whom are commemorated in the names of towns later built along the P&A line (Chipley and DeFuniak Springs), were among the founding officers of the railroad company.

Chipley was general manager of the Pensacola Railroad, (formerly the Pensacola and Louisville Railroad, originally the Alabama and Florida Railroad, completed in 1860).[4] The Pensacola Railroad connected Pensacola with the large, prosperous Louisville and Nashville Railroad (L&N) at Pollard, Alabama, about 44 miles (71 km) northward. The Pensacola Railroad had become a subsidiary of the L&N on October 20, 1880.[5] It was Chipley, a tireless promoter of his adopted city, who was responsible for initiating discussions with the L&N concerning its extension into the Florida Panhandle.[6] De Funiak was general manager of the L&N.

Once the P&A was created, De Funiak was named president of the new road, and Chipley became its vice president and general superintendent. On May 9, 1881, the L&N obtained control of the P&A by purchasing the majority of its $3 million worth of capital stock and all of its bonds, also valued at $3 million.[6][7] Construction was completed in 1883, and in 1891 the P&A was absorbed into the L&N, operating thereafter as the P&A Division of the latter.[8] After various mergers, CSX Railroad operated the line from 1986 to 2019 as its P&A Subdivision (a reference to the Pensacola and Atlantic).

The line remains in service today as part of the Florida Gulf & Atlantic Railroad,[9] which bought the line and took over operations on June 1, 2019. CSX retained ownership of the line from milepost 651.0 to milepost 645.0 (Goulding Yard in Pensacola), and has trackage rights over the FG&A.

  1. ^ The Days They Changed the Gauge
  2. ^ Acts of the Florida Legislature, 1881, chapter 3335
  3. ^ Charles H. Hildreth, "Railroads out of Pensacola, 1833-1883," Florida Historical Quarterly, 1959[dead link]
  4. ^ "Alabama and Florida (of Florida)," Confederate Railroads, accessed 1 September 2010
  5. ^ U. S. Supreme Court Reports, L&N v. Palmes, pp. 922-924
  6. ^ a b Gregg Turner, "Chapter 7: Doings in West Florida," A Short History of Florida Railroads, Arcadia Publishing, 2003, pp. 81-86
  7. ^ Kincaid A. Herr, The Louisville and Nashville Railroad, 1850-1963, fifth ed., 1964; reprinted by University of Kentucky Press, 2000, pp. 68-69.
  8. ^ Kincaid A. Herr, The Louisville and Nashville Railroad, 1850-1963, fifth ed., 1964; reprinted by University of Kentucky Press, 2000, p. 388.
  9. ^ "Florida Gulf & Atlantic Railroad, LLC-Acquisition and Operation Exemption With Interchange Commitment-CSX Transportation, Inc". Federal Register. 2018-12-21. Retrieved 2019-06-05.