I am sooooo ignorant about L&N, Family Lines, SAL, ACL, SCL, Seaboard System . . .

Classic Trains General Discussion
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As a recent train-watching trip to the Folkston “funnel” in far southern Georgia proved, I know next to nothing about the history (both operational and merger-wise) of the “Seaboard” side of the lines that came to form CSX, not much about L&N, and am not really sure when the “Family Lines” and “Seaboard System” concepts came in and who it included. (I’m a little less ignorant about C&O/B&O/Chessie.)

I snagged a bargain at alibris.com and ordered one book called CSX written by a man named Solomon and another called Seaboard Coast Line and Family Lines Railroad 1967-1986, author a Mr. Griffin.

Feel free to give your opinions of these two books if you like, but what I’m really curious about is what other books or source material you consider essential to learn about and understand the whole Seaboard “thang.” I’m up here in Chicago, so while learning about local C&O and ex-Pere Marquette would also be interesting, I’m pretty much two regions away from the exact areas that currently interest me.

Hopefully there’s nothing wrong with my also posting this request on the “Railroads” site.

al-in-chgo

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Hi Al,

For starters let me suggest you log on to www.railfan.net . Click on “Forums” at the top left of the home page and scroll down to “Fallen Flags”. Under that heading you’ll find the “Family Lines” board (which I co-moderate) that has some interesting histories of the ACL, Seaboard and other predecessor roads. Also these roads, the L&N, Clinchfield and others all have historical societies with websites of their own. A Google search by the name of the railroad (Louisville and Nashville Railroad for example) will direct you to them as well as many other sources of information. Let me know if you have any trouble finding these sources and if they are what you are looking for.

Mark

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