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Southern Railway’s 
Brosnan Hump Yard

Plaque commemorating D.W. Brosnan and his contributions to railroading.
August 11, 1982

My first assignment after joining the Association of American Railroads (AAR) Research & Test Deptartment (R&T) at the end of 1977 as an environmental specialist was to support the development of national noise standards for the railroad industry. We measured sound levels of locomotives, retarders, car coupling, load testing, refrigerator cars, and other noise sources at several railyards around the country. I’d like to share with you some images from one of the yards we studied: Southern Railway’s Brosnan hump yard at Macon, Georgia.

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Going Through Changes

Meridian, Mississippi, 1965
Like most roads, Southern Railway ran GP-series locomotives on local trains. Here no. 2178 races southward toward Meridian, Mississippi, on an afternoon in July 1965.
©J. Parker Lamb, Collection of Center for Railroad Photography and Art
Used with permission

I was recently looking at some of J. Parker Lamb’s images and started to see locations I’ve shot at myself around Meridian, Mississippi, over the last couple of years. It’s truly amazing to see stuff that has changed over the decades. You see things in a totally different perspective and it kind of gives you the desire to go out and explore and try new techniques. At least that is what happened with me.

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A Brief History of 
Southern Railway’s 
Atlanta Office Building

View of Southern Railway’s Atlanta office complex looking south along Spring Street, SW . Photo was taken some time in the late 1950s or early 60s. Photo courtesy of O. Fenton Wells.

Railroad office buildings are not normally a subject covered so extensively as other aspects of railroading. I did not even think of them during my early years of rail-fanning, until I began my thirty year railroad career with Southern Railway in September, 1973.

The Southern Railway office complex was located on what was then Spring Street, SW in downtown Atlanta, Georgia. The concrete buildings were quite impressive. The east side of the buildings faced Spring Street, while the west side faced the Atlanta to Macon main lines of the Southern and Central of Georgia railroads. The buildings housed various departments including information technology, operations, car accounting, engineering (maintenance of way and structures) to name a few. I worked in the Bridge Department for twenty-nine years which was a part of engineering.

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