Georgia Northeastern Railroad | Fall Leaves & Stalling | Whitestone Turn

Welcome to Tate, a small town in the northwest corner of Georgia, also hosting the home of the northernmost terminal on the Georgia Northeastern Railroad, along with its main repair and servicing facilities. The Georgia Northeastern railroad is a small, short line owning roughly 60 miles of former L&N Hook n’ eye Route track between Elizabeth, GA in Marietta and Ellijay, GA, while also still providing freight service as far as Blue Ridge, GA and is operated by Patriot Rail Company.

At Ellijay, the state of Georgia owns the trackage north to Blue Ridge where the Georgia Northeastern’s tourist railroad subsidiary Blue Ridge Scenic, runs the rest of the route north all the way to McCaysville, GA where it meets the Tennessee Valley Scenic Railroad’s trackage into Copper Hill, TN. Tate Georgia is a quaint little town that’ll surprise you with beautiful mountain views of the lower Appalachians and so many things to see and do! The history of the town dates back to when the Louisville and Nashville railroad built their Hook N’ Eye route down from Etowah, TN to their Chattanooga - Atlanta mainline at Marietta, GA. The depot here at Tate was built in early 1916 when the town started to Boom with business, mainly due to a wealthy man named Samuel Tate to which the town was named after, and his massively successful marble business is still prevalent today.

Today, we’ll follow the twice weekly Whitestone local on its return trip to Tate, there isn’t much business north of Tate like their used to be, but what they do have keeps the small rail operator busy as a bee at times to keep up with their aging EMD fleet and the rough mountain grades. So sit back and relax as we watch the yard crew move some engines around to make room for a local that’ll be coming in later this morning.

After clearing up in the second shop track, the yard crew ties the engines down and heads into the office awaiting further work and instructions. At this point, I had originally thought that I missed a run, but I took the liberty of driving north towards Whitestone, GA and ended up surprising myself with a decently hard catch on its way back to Tate! About 30 minutes later, we catch up to the Whitestone Local heading back from its sometimes Once every two weeks run to Imery and Whitestone, GA. This is where the end of the business along the line is currently, a handful of Marble and various rock mines that the railroad still serves.

Today's train has GNRR 9708 a former Penn Central GP38 leading and Columbia and Cowlitz 3804 a former Cotton Belt GP40-2 rebuilt into a GP38-3 trailing second out; with 10 loaded rock hoppers in tow for the interchange tomorrow with CSX in Marietta, GA!

We’ll watch as these two girls attempt to make the climb three times before successfully achieving the task on the fourth attempt after stalling and having to roll back to try again and again. The heavy rock loads give them a challenge and it’s a beautiful show to watch and listen to!

A handful of the engines here will make up the power for the trip tomorrow down to Elizabeth yard to interchange with CSX on CSX’s Western and Atlantic mainline.

I hope you enjoyed this in depth look at the Georgia Northeastern Railroad’s Whitestone Turn, and I’m looking forward to doing a shoot on the Run up to and down from Tate to their yard in Elizabeth!

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