Author: jeff_robertson

Dadsplaining Dad-Rock – Part 1

An incomplete history of hard rock, heavy metal, and punk rock music, Part 1 of ???

The subtitle of this blog promises “classic rock”, a promise I have until now failed to make good on.

This post is mainly a series of links to youtube videos illustrating the music genres in question. This is not meant to teach you, the reader, anything you didn’t already know, but may be helpful in explaining these genres to your kids or something. I started making it for that purpose myself, but it has grown way longer than I expected it to.

Band names are links to Wikipedia, song titles are links to music videos.

Keeping the links alive is already turning out to be a constant battle – at least one song was removed from youtube for copyright reasons between when I started writing this post, and when I published it.

Blues, Jazz, early Rock-n-Roll

We begin with a very brief selection of early songs that “look forward” to fuzztone, distortion, and fast guitar pickin’.

British Invasion, British Blues, Freakbeat

The standard narrative of the early 60s musical invasion of the US by British bands is that the Brits, being less racist (or at least racist against different races than Americans were), “got” the Blues in a way that most white Americans didn’t. This is almost certainly bullshit.

However, many of these bands did (re)introduce some of the rawer, grittier elements of the music back to American audiences.

Garage Rock

Garage rock can be seen as one of America’s first two punches back against the British Invasion (the other, more successful punch, was Motown).

Garage Rock was dismissed as teeny-bopper stuff at the time, merely a derivative of both British bands and of 50s rock and roll.

The retroactive re-appraisal of Garage Rock started with the Nuggets series. In the 70s it came to be seen as the direct ancestor of punk rock, also recognized for having pushed the envelope towards psychedelic or “acid” rock later in the 60s.

This section could use expansion.. or you could just go find more yourself.

Psychedelic Rock, Blues Rock, Acid Rock, Proto-Metal (1967-1969)

This was the point when Rock (with a capital “R”) really split off from the pop mainstream. This is a selection of some of “heavier” songs; this period also featured a lot of wispy psychedelia, folk rock, and semi-classical chamber-rock that eventually became Progressive Rock.

This music is obviously directly ancestral to 70s hard rock and heavy metal, but most reckon punk rock’s ancestry to have already split off (see Proto-Punk).

Early Hard Rock / Heavy Metal

At this point, “hard rock” and “heavy metal” were not defined as different genres, and indeed were not really even distinguished from progressive rock yet.

The standard sound was rooted in blues and early rock, usually mid-tempo, with a guitar sound that tended to be powered by fuzz pedals at first and gradually relying more on amplifier overdrive as that technology became more advanced, and a vocal style that bordered on screaming (but would of course be considered “clean” by extreme metal standards).

Songs consist mostly of guitar power chords, swinging/shuffling rhythms inherited from blues, riffs derived from the blues scale, and frequent guitar solos. The bluesy nature is a main thing that distinguishes this style from later styles of metal and rock.

Proto-Punk, Glam-Punk

Here we pause the progression of hard rock in the 1970s, and step back to the 60’s to explore the development of punk out of garage-rock roots.

Other than the Velvet Underground, who were too artsy-fartsy to be lumped into a “genre”, these bands were characterized as Hard Rock or Glam Rock by contemporary observers. Later (meaning after the Ramones and Sex Pistols) they were retroactively re-christened as punk forebears.

Even after the deluge of the 1977-style punk rock, there have been continual waves of new punk- or punk-related bands that still sound more like these ancestral bands.

Glam Rock

Glam Rock was closely related to hard rock, but had a glitzy hair-and-makeup image completely different from the “dirty hippie” look of most other contemporary rock. It was an almost exclusively British phenomenon except in the very late phases.

It should be noted the Glam Rock was more of a fashion movement than a musical one. Musically, if glam rock has a central tendency, it would be towards a sound firmly based in 1950’s Rock n Roll – including such trappings as I-VI-IV-V chord progressions, boogie-woogie rhythm guitar, pounding piano, vocal harmonies,  saxophone as a main instrument – but updated for 70s production values and hard rock guitar sounds, with a certain pompous grandeur that’s harder to describe in words than it should be.

The same 50’s nostalgia can be heard in much other 70s rock, from Elton John’s “Crocodile Rock” to about half of Bruce Springsteen’s career, not to mention the Rolling Stones and Faces – Glam was musically continuous with its contemporaries and hard to draw a box around. It’s not for nothing that this was also the decade of “American Graffiti” and “Happy Days”.

The musical elements of Glam – especially the pounding beats and “Chuck Berry turned up to 11” guitar – were important influences or inspirations to punk and post-punk, and even more obviously an influence on Glam Metal (especially the 2nd, less metallic wave of bands like Poison).

This list only includes the harder-rocking songs by these artists.

Pub Rock

Pub Rock was a “back to basics” style of music based on early Rock and Roll that existed mainly in the mid 70s and almost exclusively in London. Most of the bands involved in Pub Rock were never well-known in the US, and never will be, though a few individuals later became big name as New Wave solo artists.

It is notable mainly for being the genre that Punk Rock directly replaced as the “hot new thing” on the British music scene.

Further Developments in Hard Rock

“Everyone knows Rock attained perfection in 1974”

Meanwhile, after about 1973, Hard Rock itself was developing towards a more “radio-friendly” sound increasingly divorced from the fuzzy sound of the 60s. This development eventually led to Arena Rock.

Gradually, Progressive Rock and Heavy Metal were allowed to go off into their own spaces and be their weird selves in secret, while Hard Rock went mainstream in outlook.

This is still a large chunk of the music played on “classic rock” stations, along with the later Arena Rock.

Punk Rock and close relatives

The initial wave of Punk Rock took the Glam/Proto-Punk template a step further away from mainstream hard rock. Songs became shorter, faster, simpler, with fewer (or at least simpler) guitar solos, almost universal lack of any instruments beyond guitar/bass/drums, and deliberately unskilled vocals.

Punk Rock per se was short lived as a major commercial genre. Many of the more successful bands and/or their constituent musicians moved off, by the 80s, into the world of Post Punk, and the ones that didn’t change went back to a small niche market. Punk was largely replaced, in the public eye, by “New Wave“.

However, the stage had been set for descendants of punk rock to flourish underground, in local clubs and small independent record labels, in hand-written fanzines, out of sight and out of mind, to periodically burst back into the rock mainstream over the decades. (Seen this way, these bands here may actually count as the 3rd such eruption, after Garage Rock and Proto-Punk)

We’ll stop there for now. Next installment: The 80s, with everything from “Don’t Stop Believing” to “Angel of Death”!

The Roswell Railroad

This post gathers the information I’ve been able to find about the Roswell Railroad, one of the almost-completely vanished and forgotten rail lines of the Atlanta area. This was branch of Southern Railway that operated between Chamblee and Roswell from 1881 to 1921.

According to RailGa.com:

The Roswell Railroad Company was incorporated in Georgia in 1879 as successor to the Atlanta & Roswell Railroad Company. It was controlled by the Atlanta & Charlotte Air-Line Railroad Company, which constructed the 10-mile, 3-foot gauge line and opened it for business on September 1, 1881. In the same year, the A&CAL was leased to the Richmond & Danville Railroad (which became Southern Railway in 1894).

(RailGa.com)

The town of Chamblee was originally called “Roswell Junction”.

However, feeling the name of the settlement was too similar to nearby Roswell, they randomly selected Chamblee from a list of petitioners for the new post office name.

The railroad followed very roughly the present-day Chamblee-Dunwoody Road to the center of old-town Dunwoody, where the building located at 5518 Chamblee-Dunwoody Road was a section house.

 

The original Dunwoody depot was later moved and used as “Thompson’s Store”, but this building no longer remains.

(from Narrow Gauge Discussion Forum)

The line never actually reached Roswell, as the company was never able to build a bridge across the Chattahoochee. It ran along Roberts Drive and what is now Dunwoody Place, and ended near the present North River Tavern. This station was referred to as “Roswell” by the railroad. The engine house was “moved to by the river for use as a barn”.

Roberts Drive is named after Isaac “Ike” Roberts, the “only engineer of the Roswell Railroad”, whose house still stands at 9725 Roberts Drive.

The final stop was Roswell Station, on the south bank of the Chattahoochee River, just east of the current Roswell Road. There was no means to turn the locomotive around, so it simply ran backwards on its return trip. The train was powered by 0-6-0-arranged Baldwin 1878 steam locomotive named “Buck.”

(from Historic Roswell Georgia)

There was also a branch to the current location of Morgan Falls Dam.

The railroad famously was used by Teddy Roosevelt when he visited Bulloch Hall in 1905.

Theodore Roosevelt, who had begun his presidency on reasonably good terms for a half-northerner president, had infuriated the South by inviting Booker T. Washington to dine in the White House. Consequently, he waited a few years until the episode blew over and finally visited Bulloch Hall for the first time while touring the South in 1905. He was thought to be the first sitting President of the United States to visit the South since the end of the American Civil War, however this is incorrect as William McKinley had visited the South earlier while celebrating the victory of the Spanish–American War.

(from Narrow Gauge Discussion Forum)

Update:

It looks like I need to be paying a visit to the Roswell Visitors Center.

(from michaelhitt.com)

See also:

Schambeau’s (Bayou La Batre) Commercial

I have no recollection of Schambeau’s advertising on TV, especially not a spot this long. It looks like the early 80s. The kids shown buying from the candy counter were probably my classmates.

Schambeau’s was one of the two main grocery stores in Bayou La Batre, along with rival Greers. Schambeau’s was about a mile further from our house, but we shopped at both.

Schambeau’s was more of a General Store than Greers, which was purely a Supermarket. In the last years, Crum Schambeau was heard to remark that the real competition was the Walmart in Tillman’s Corner.

Schambeau’s did not long outlive Mr. Crum, due (I’m told) to his heirs not wishing to continue running the store. Greers continues.

Bayou La Batre’s Own “Cannery Row”

When you grow up in Bayou La Batre, there are certain things long gone that you hear about from the older residents.

The railroad. The fine hotels destroyed by the 1906 and 1916 storms, never to return. The old bridge. (Twist: I remember that one, and the old Dauphin Island bridge too!)

When we would drive around the shore on Shell Belt Road, my Pawpaw would point out a location where the “Old Factory” used to be. There was not even a trace of anything that looked like a building remaining.

This map, dated 1918, shows a “Canning Factory” at the end of a railroad spur, located conveniently near to the “Oyster Beds”. I don’t remember anyone specifically saying that oysters were what was processed at the factory, but it would certainly make a lot of sense if it was.

Source: University of Alabama Map Library

The railroad here was the “Bay Shore” branch of the Mobile & Ohio Railroad, which operated from approximately 1899 to 1940. There is little to show of this line today, the rails having been physically removed soon after abandonment. It is memorialized by Railroad Street in the Bayou and Bay Shore Avenue in Mobile.

This (1926) map highlights the route from Mobile to Bayou La Batre:

Source: University of Alabama Map Library

The  Bay Shore Historical Society website says:

At the far western end of the wye at San Souci was the lead to the Alabama Canning Company, also known as the American Canning Company. Alabama Canning Company was located on the north end of Coffee Island, about a mile south of the junction at San Souci. It was on this track that the trains would head down first, then back up through the wye toward Bayou la Batre.

The 1918 map disagrees about the factory being on Coffee Island, and I’m inclined to side with the map. An island location would have required the railroad to build a mile-long trestle over the bay. This does not fit with any description of this railroad that I’ve ever heard of before, and would have been a literal “bridge to nowhere”.

It seems more reasonable that the factory was located on the mainland.

At the approximate location of where the “Old Factory” was said to be, there is still a dirt “road” off from Shell Belt Rd through the salt marsh, leading towards the shore of Portersville Bay. It goes to a point that naturally sticks out into the bay. It can clearly be seen on modern satellite images:

Source: Google Maps

This is what it looks like in Google Street View (and in real life too!):

It is most consistent with the old map if this “road” is actually the railroad right-of-way. Here is the satellite image with the guessed route of the railroad tracks highlighted in yellow:

The real revelation happened when I began searching for more info on the “Alabama Canning Company”.

It turns out there are a lot of pictures of this place, located in the National Archives and the Library of Congress!

This photo shows oysters being unloaded onto the dock. It looks like they had a large pier running out into the bay, with railroad tracks utilized for wheeled oyster baskets. The factory in the background looks like a sizeable operation. It must have been the biggest industry in town at the time.

Source: Mediawiki Commons

Here we see the whole thing as it looked from out on a boat in the bay:

Source: Library of Congress

Many of the photos show very young workers in the factory and on the boats. This was the early 20th century, the era of child labor.

Original caption: “Alfred and Willie, two young oyster fishers in Mobile Bay. A few, but not many of these youngsters are found on the oyster boats. Bayou La Batre, Ala.” (National Archives)
“Fred, a young oyster fisher; working on an oyster boat in Mobile Bay, the Reef, near Bayou La Batre, said he was fourteen, but not likely. ” (Library of Congress)
“Shucking oysters in the Alabama Canning Company (Dunbar Lopez, Dukate Co.) Small boy on left end is Mike Murphy, ten years old, and from Baltimore” (LOC)
“On right-hand end is Marie —, eight years old, who shucks 6 or 7 pots of oysters a day (30 or 35 cents) at a canning company. At left end of photo is Johnnie —, eight years old, who earns 45 cents a day. Been shucking for three years. ” (LOC)

“Little Nettie [?], a regular oyster-shucker in Alabama Canning Co. She speaks no English. Note the condition of her shoes, caused by standing on the rough shells so much, a common sight”. (Other versions identify the subject as “Lottie”)
These photos were taken about 1912-1913. The children would have been born in the first decade of the 20th century. This is about the age of my great-grandparents. If you are from Bayou La Batre, some of them could be your great-grandparents, if not great-great-grandparents.

The work was seasonal, with many families coming to town only during the cooler months when oysters were in season. You can see in the photos almost everyone is dressed for cooler weather. Many of the workers were also immigrants, as the captions mention some children being unable to speak English. From the Mississippi Gulf Coast Museum of Museum of Historical Photography website:

The [labor shortage] problem was resolved initially by bringing in Eastern European immigrants known as ‘Bohemians’ from the Baltimore, Maryland canneries.  The Baltimore people traveled in special railroad cars from their homes in Baltimore to work the canneries during the winter oyster season along the coast.   They lived in factory-owned camps near the canneries, and the children rarely attended local schools. Some of the Baltimore families stayed on after the oyster season.

We can assume the hiring practices established in Biloxi were also followed in Bayou La Batre.

It turns out the reason all of these 100-year old pictures from Bayou La Batre are part of the national historical record, is because they were part of a famous series taken by Lewis Wickes Hine. Lewis Hine is an unsung hero of American labor relations, risking his own safety to end the practice of child labor in this country.

Lewis W. Hine

In 1908 Hine became the photographer for the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC), leaving his teaching position. Over the next decade, Hine documented child labor, with focus on the use of child labor in the Carolina Piedmont,[3] to aid the NCLC’s lobbying efforts to end the practice.[4] In 1913, he documented child laborers among cotton mill workers with a series of Francis Galton‘s composite portraits.

Hine’s work for the NCLC was often dangerous. As a photographer, he was frequently threatened with violence or even death by factory police and foremen. At the time, the immorality of child labor was meant to be hidden from the public. Photography was not only prohibited but also posed a serious threat to the industry. To gain entry to the mills, mines and factories, Hine was forced to assume many guises. At times he was a fire inspector, postcard vendor, bible salesman, or even an industrial photographer making a record of factory machinery.[5]

So here we have a connection to historical events of national importance, right there in Bayou La Batre, and all that’s left of it is a dirt path through the marsh grass and scattered recollections of an “Old Factory”.

Hine is also the photographer of a very well known series on the construction of the Empire State Building.

Source: CUNY

So when was this factory built, and whatever happened to it? The Bay Shore website says:

Below is a photograph taken before the hurricane of 1906, showing the company tracks on the west side of the building. The photographer is facing south, toward Portersville Bay.

The buildings seen in this image were either heavily damaged, or destroyed, in the 1906 hurricane, and the company either elected not to rebuild, or was financially unable to. At a later date (unknown) this location became the Dunbar & Ducate Factory. Dunbar & Ducate was later destroyed by a boiler explosion which claimed the lives of several employees.

“Dunbar & Ducate”, (or DuKate) had already taken over by the time of Hines’ photos in 1912-1913 (and indeed some of his captions refer to it as such).

W.K.M. DuKate

The Biloxi Historical Society lists a number factories owned by several firms involving the DuKate family, including “Dunbars, Lopez, & Dukate Company“, in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. It appears that it was often called the “Alabama Canning Company” even when it was owned by DuKate.

Julian Lee Rayford, writing in 1956, describes a world already long gone, including a “Big Factory” owned by “Dunn, Barr, and Ducate”.

GEORGE BRYANT told me about the factories
in Bayou la Batre.

The factories fall into two classes. First, the
factories of 1915, and a few years later. And,
second, the factories of today. There is little con-
nection between the two. True, the factories have
always canned shrimp and oysters, but there is a
distinct contrast between the periods.

Pure Food Laws have cleaned them up, and
now, everything is peaceful and quiet in the fac-
tories. Government inspectors stand on constant vi-
gil making the pickers maintain purity and quality
in the products.

After 1906, the factories lined the Bayou.
There was the Union factory, operated by the
Union. There was the finest and largest, the one
run by Daughdrille. On the coast, was the “Big
Factory,” controlled by Dun, Barr and Ducate. And
there was the “Green Factory,” so called because of
the color used on the outside of the building. All
along the Bayou were the picking sheds, which sent
their products to the larger establishments to be
packed, or, canned.

An article in the New Orleans Times-Democrat, April 7 1910, mentions a factory being constructed by this company in Bayou La Batre:

The John F. Wentzell mentioned here is probably related to Wintzell’s Oyster House founder J. Oliver Wintzell, as well as the Wintzell family of Bayou La Batre.

The factory is described as packing shrimp. It is not clear if this was the same facility as the oyster plant shown in the photos, or a different plant also located in Bayou La Batre.

I cannot find any information about the existence of the Alabama Canning Company earlier than this. It is possible it operated under a different name before DuKate took it over, if it actually existed before 1910.

The plant survived and was repaired after the 1916 storm:

I can only find one other page about an explosion, the Find-A-Grave page for Robert Walter Cox who died on August 16, 1923 when an ammonia tank exploded in the ice plant of the cannery. It reads like a newspaper article, but there’s no citation and I cannot find the same story anywhere else.

EXPLOSION KILLS ONE AND INJURES TWO AT ICE PLANT

Ammonia Tank Blows Up At Bayou La Batre, Killing Robert Cox and Wrecking Plant

Death injury and heavy property damage resulted form a violent explosion at the ice pant of the Alabama Canning Company at Bayou la Batre Thursday night. Robert Cox, 40 years old, frieman at the plant was almost instantly killed and two other persons, Willie and Aime Castello, father and son, recieved serious injuries. The disaster occurred when an ammonia generator exploded, wrecking the one-story structure. The loud noise which accompanied the explosion attracted the attention of people throughout the community, many of whom hurried to the scene.

Cox was discovered in a dying condition outside the boiler room a few minutes after the generator exploded. The younger Castello was huried to the roof of the building from which he was rescued by persons who rushed to the plant. Willie Castello, the father, is an engineer at the plant according to information received in Mobile. His son is tankman at the ice plant.

Shortly after the accident a Mobile physicain was summoned to treat the injured. The small casualty list was apprently attributable to the fact that only a few employees were on duty whe the explosion occurred.

Perhaps this explosion was too much for the Big Factory to come back from, and put them out of business. Perhaps the Pure Food and Child Labor laws had made the business unprofitable. Or maybe decreasing supply due to overfishing. Or a combination of all these things.

By the time of this 1943 map, the railroad is abandoned, the spur track for the factory is already just a dirt road, and the there is no indication building where the factory would have been.

Source: USGS

It is also gone on this aerial photograph from the 1940s, where things do not look terribly different from today:

Source: Bay Shore Historical Society

In the 20 years from 1923 to 1943, all trace of the Old Factory has vanished into the sea and sand.

Public Domain Theater (a random childhood memory)

When I was a kid in the early 1980s, the public library had a children’s movie program once a week during the summer. My mom, and I think most of the other parents who took advantage of it, would drop us off at the library and go do her shopping or whatever other errands she needed to run, while we sat in a darkened wing of the library and watched movies.

I’m guessing they were legally only allowed to show things that  were in the public domain. Because everything they showed was old. Some of it as old as the 1920s.

Sometimes they would show silent movies and cartoons, which was a problem because the audience included children too young to read. The older children were expected to read it out loud for the younger ones.

Many of the cartoons I saw there, I later learned were so old that they were significant in the development of animation!

Things I can remember seeing there:

  • Lotte Reiniger’s Cinderella – 1922 silent, black and white “cartoon” where all the characters are just black silhouettes. You can imagine how this confused the hell out of a bunch of 80s kids.
  • Max and Dave Fleischer’s Gulliver’s Travels – 1939 technicolor feature film, the first such released by a non-Disney studio. The high budgets of this and their only other feature, Mr. Bug Goes to Town, contributed to the Fleischer studio losing its independence and becoming part of Paramount.
  • Lev Atomanov’s The Snow Queen – 1957 animated feature from the USSR. The fact that this got an American dub release in 1959, with an all-star cast, seems like it must have been a triumph of Cold War diplomacy.
  • Some weird, silent (but color?!) thing with puppets.

Question to my librarian friends, do ya’ll still do stuff like this?

 

Atlanta area railroad mileposts

Here I reproduce information from the Norfolk Southern and CSX timetables. I have many times wished I had this to pull up on my iphone in a form other than the bulky PDFs this data is from.

Stations marked “not in timetable” represent signals that trains have been observed to call out (“Clear Doraville, NS 203 southbound”) over the scanner. NS generally does not list intermediate signals (between control points) in their timetables, but they may be shown on their track diagrams. Not sure about CSX.

Text in italics is additional commentary, not from timetable.

Norfolk Southern

First, a “British subway map” of these lines. Obviously not to scale.

ns_atl

Alabama Division

Source: http://www.multimodalways.org/docs/railroads/companies/NS/NS%20ETTs/NS%20AL%20Div%20ETT%20%231%208-4-2008.pdf

East End District

650 AUSTELL
652.9 LITHIA SPRINGS
655.2 BEN HILL
657.3 HBD-DED (Cracker)
658.7 Douglasville
663 HBD-DED (Winston)
664.6 WINSTON
666.6 CARROLL
668.2 BAGGETT
669.5 VILLA RICA
671.6 HBD-DED (Villa Rica)
675.5 TAYLOR
677.5 TEMPLE
680.6 HBD-DED (Morgan)
682.7 SEWELL
685 BREMEN
689 HBD-DED (Waco)
692.7 HUBBARD
695.2 TALLAPOOSA
697.9 HBD-DED (Tallapoosa)
699.9 GA/AL State Line
707.4 HBD-DED (Fruithurst)
708.4 FOSTER
710.4 EDWARDSVILLE
714.1 OWENS
716.3 HEFLIN
718.2 HBD-DED (Cleburne)
727.1 ARDREY
729.1 DEARMANVILLE
730.2 HBD-DED-HWD (Dearmanville)
733.4 LARDENT
735 ANNISTON (Amtrak station)
736.7 LETCHERS
741.6 HBD-DED (Bynum)
741.7 Coldwater Branch
743 BYNUM
746.4 GRAY
751.8 HBD-DED (Lincoln)
754.1 LINCOLN
756.1 EMBRY
758 COOSA
762.9 HBD-DED (Pell City)
767.8 HOLT
769.8 ROBERTS
771.6 HBD-DED (Cook Springs)
776.2 BROMPTON
778.1 COLEMAN
781.8 HBD-DED (Leeds)
781.9 LEEDS
782.7 CENTRAL
783.7 HENRY ELLEN
787.7 LOVICK
790.7 NORRIS JUNCTION (Norris Yard)
791.8 IRONDALE JUNCTION
798.1 32ND STREET
798.2 27TH STREET (Birmingham)

Georgia Division

Source: http://www.multimodalways.org/docs/railroads/companies/NS/NS%20ETTs/NS%20GA%20Div%20ETT%20%231%208-4-2008.pdf

Atlanta North District

240.0 A DeButts Yard (Chattanooga)
239.8 A WEBB
238.7 A PIERCE
238.2 A CITICO JCT.
237.3 A BROWN
236.6 A SPELL
236.0 A WILLIAMS
235.0 A JERSEY
230.6 A HBD-DED (Summit)
230.5 A SUMMIT
226.6 A/15.2 H OOLTEWAH
18.1 H HBD-DED (Collegedale)
21.7 H LONG
23.6 H GA/TN State Line
25.0 H HBD-DED (Cohutta)
27.0 H COHUTTA
31.5 H VARNELL
36.0 H WARING
36.2 H HBD-DED-HWD (Waring)
37.7 H NORTON
39.9 H N. DALTON
40.1 H HAIR
42.4 H WALNUT
45.1 H HBD-DED (Phelps)
45.2 H PHELPS
47.9 H FREEMAN
53.3 H DAVIS
55.3 H SUGAR VALLEY
58.2 H TALLEY
60.7 H HALL
55.4 H HBD-DED
66.2 H HBD-DED (Plainville)
67.8 H REEVES
69.6 H PINSON
75.1 H BERWIN
75.1 H HBD-DED
77.0 H Forrestville Yard
78.1 H FOX
81.2 H SMITH
83.9 H LINDALE
85.4 H HBD-DED (Silvercreek)
90.1 H BRICE
92.0 H GREEN
95.2 H HBD-DED (Seney)
98.5 H ARAGON
101.4 H OLLIE
102.0 H ROCKMART
105.7 H HBD-DED (Finch)
106.9 H FINCH
112.0 H ROGERS
114.5 H McPHERSON
118.2 H HBD-DED-HWD (Dallas)
121.4 H OAK
123.5 H HIRAM
125.4 H CLARK
128.2 H HBD-DED (Powder Springs)
130.3 H FOSS
131.3 H COWART
131.6 H SHIPP
132.8 H Whitaker Yard
132.9 H HBD-DED (Whitaker Yard)
133.0 H ENGLAND
134.7 H AUSTELL

East End district connects here.
137.2 H LOWE

Near Mableton
140.0 H NICKAJACK
140.7 H HBD-DED (Nickajack)
143.1 H JACKMAC

Visible from Buckner Rd.
Chattahoochee River
BRIDGE (not in timetable)

Accessible via Parrot Avenue.
145.5 H BOLTON
146.7 H FIELDS
146.8 H NORTH INMAN
148.0 H Inman Yard
149.0 H ROCKDALE

Can be seen from Marietta Blvd overpass.

Atlanta South District

149.9 H HOWELL

Behind Bim’s Liquor store/King Plow parking lot. See blog entry.
150.1 H KING PLOW

Visible from Marietta Street overpass / parking lot at end of 10th street.
JEFFERSON STREET (not in timetable)

Street dead-ends at tracks. Frequent crew-change point. Stopped trains visible from Marietta St bridge.
GRINELL (not in timetable)

Between Northside Drive bridge and North Avenue tunnel.
152.4 H SPRING

Visible from Mitchell, Nelson, Peters Streets. See blog entry.
153.? CIRCLE (not in timetable)

Very new signal sign just south of Peters St.
154.2 H WELLS

Across McDaniel Street from South Yard
154.6 H SOUTH YARD

Nearly-abandoned yard on McDaniel St, home to Pegram Shops and the Walking Dead’s “Terminus”.
155.4 H HENDERSON

University Ave/Hank Aaron Drive
158.8 H CONSTITUTION

Fayetteville Rd. and Old Constitution Rd.
158.8 H HBD-DED
162.5 H NORTH CONLEY

Moreland Ave (US 23) and E. Conley Rd.
164.5 H PLESS
165.7 H HBD-DED (Ellenwood)
171.5 H STOCKBRIDGE
173.7 H TUNIS (Flippen)
181.5 H McDONOUGH
183.5 H GROVE
187.4 H HBD-DED-HWD (Locust Grove)
193.0 H JENKINSBURG
195.0 H BUNCH
198.0 H HBD-DED (Jackson)
203.0 H FLOVILLA
205.2 H SANDY
208.0 H HBD-DED (Cork)
215.0 H BERNER
216.8 H JULIETTE
218.8 H SCHERER
222.5 H HBD-DED (Dames Ferry)
225.0 H GRUBBS
230.1 H DAMES
232.3 H ARKWRIGHT
233.7 H HBD-DED-HCD
239.1 H NORTH MACON
240.5 H MACON JCT.
242.0 H BROSNAN YARD

Griffin District

Ex-Central of Georgia. Shared with CSX to East Point.

S 294.3 SPRING
S 291.5 OAKLAND JCT.

Murphy Ave, near the Cut Rate Box Company building. Old A&WP belt line connects here.
S 290.0 TILLMAN
S 288.8 INDUSTRY YARD

Most of yard can be seen from Harold Sheets Pkwy.
S 288.2 EAST POINT

Near pedestrian bridge and MARTA. CSX leaves onto its own tracks.
S 286.4 HAPEVILLE

Sylvan Rd. crossing.
S 283.7 MOUNTAIN VIEW

Along Old Dixie Hwy. between I-75 and I-285.
S 282.2 FOREST PARK

Main St. and Hale Rd, at south end of yard.
S 280.1 LEE

Along Metcalf Rd. in Lake City.
S 277.8 MORROW
S 274.7 HBD (North Jonesboro)
S 273.4 JONESBORO
S 251.0 GRIFFIN
S 233.6 BARNESVILLE
S 223.5 COLLIER
S 221.1 HBD
S 217.0 FORSYTH
S 212.9 SMARR
S 206.1 HBD-DED (Bolingbrooke)
H 192.1 EDGEWOOD
H 197.0 RUTLAND JCT.

Piedmont Division

Source: http://www.multimodalways.org/docs/railroads/companies/NS/NS%20ETTs/NS%20Piedmont%20Div%20ETT%20%231%208-4-2008.pdf

Greenville District

484.1 Greenville (Amtrak station)
484.5 SOUTH GREENVILLE
486.5 FALLIS
489.2 CROSSWELL
492.5 HBD (Lathem)
493.6 HAYWOOD
498.5 METLER
504.1 TRABER
504.2 HBD (Traber)
508 JOHNSON
511.9 ROWLAND
513.7 HBD (Clemson)
514.2 Clemson
517 KEOWEE
519.6 COURTENAY
521.9 HBD (Seneca)
525.6 CHENEY
526.1 HBD (Cheney)
530.2 JASON
533.8 HUNTER
539.2 HBD-HWD (Madison)
542.1 TUGALO
545 PARK
547.3 TOCCOA (Amtrak station)
552 AYERSVILLE
552.4 HBD (Ayersville)
558 MT. AIRY
562 BALDWIN
564.1 HBD (Alto)
569.1 YONAH
572.5? Downtown Lula. Branch line to Athens connects to main line.
574 CAGLE
575.1 HBD (Cagle)
581.1 RED LANE

North of White Sulpur Rd. crossing.
584.6 Gainesville (Amtrak station)
585 MIDLAND

Junction with CSX Gainesville Midland sub
588 CHICOPEE
588.6 HBD (Oakwood)
592.3 GRIF

Near HF Reed Industrial Park Conn. bridge.
594.8 ALLEN

Near Flowery Branch
598.2 HBD (Walters)
599.8 WALTERS

Downtown Buford near Train Master model train store
605.2 SHADOW BROOK
611 HBD (Duluth)
612.7 DULUTH
615 CAROLINA

Between North and South Berkley Lake Roads.
619 NORCROSS

North-facing visible from Rowan Street / Stephens Rd crossing (near RockTenn).
619 HBD (Norcross)
621.4 RAY

Visible from Oakcliff Rd. bridge and from Bankers Industrial Dr.
622.7 (?) DORAVILLE (not in timetable)

Next to gravel truck parking lot on New Peachtree Rd, across from Marathon fuel terminal.
624.5 CHAMBLEE

Next to Peachtree St in downtown Chamblee
626.3 GOODWIN

Near Redding Rd
626.6 HBD (Goodwin)
630.9 FOREMOST

Near Piedmont Rd.
632.5 ARMOUR
633.3 ATLANTA (Amtrak station)
MECASLIN ST (not in timetable)

Grade crossing behind Atlantic Station Target, road is only access to Narjoe Lumber Co.
634.8 BIRMONT

Visible from Westside Provisions District, and from end of Foster Street by Goat Farm arts center.
CSX
635 HOWELL
148.0 H INMAN YARD

CSX

Atlanta Division

Source: http://www.multimodalways.org/docs/railroads/companies/CSX/CSX%20ETTs/CSX%20Atlanta%20Div%20ETT%20%233%201-1-2005.pdf

Work in progress… CSX timetable not as easy to cut and paste from as NS!

A&WP Subdivision

Abbeville Subdivision

Atlanta Terminal Subdivision

csx_atl_term

“Chart A”

WA 22.4 N ELIZABETH
WA 22.2 ELIZABETH

GNRR/Patriot Rail connection.
WA 21.2 SE EAST SIDING
WA 20.4 MARIETTA DEPOT
WA 19.5 BUTLER STREET
WA 17.6 LOCKAIR
WA 15.0 SMYRNA DEPOT
WA 13.1 SMYRNA
WA 12.5 I-285
WA 11.2 VININGS (HB-DED)
WA 7.9 OVERMYER
WA 7.5 JAC MAC LEAD
Chattahoochee River

WA 7.4

 GILSTRAP

WA 6.6

 BOLTON

WA 5.9

 4700

WA 5.1

 RAILPLANT

WA 4.9

 TILFORD

Near Marietta Street bridge.

WA 4.7

 PINE STREET

WA 3.8

 TOP OF SLIDE

Visible from Marietta Blvd bridge.

WA 2.9

 HOWELL TOWER

Behind Bim’s Liquor store/King Plow parking lot.
NS

WA 2.7

 TENTH STREET

Street ends in parking lot at the tracks.
NS

WA 1.3

 JONES AVENUE

The original name of Ivan Allen Jr Blvd.

WA 0.8

 THURMOND STREET

WA 0.0

 CIRCLE CONNECTION

Where Fairlie Street dead-ends into a pay parking lot. This is the “zero milepost”, although the actual historic milepost marker is slightly to the east, in an underground building.

YYG 170.0

 BOULEVARD YARD

YYH 169.5

 HULSEY YARD

YYG 168.5

 HURT STREET

YYG 168.1

 LAFRANCE STREET

YYG 167.2

 PIE HOUSE

YYG 166.8

 HOWARD STREET

YYG 165.9

 KIRKWOOD

This is where Inman Park Belt (chart D) branches off.

YYG 164.8

 DECATUR

YYG 162.5

 SCOTTDALE

YYG 162.4

 DTC BLOCK SIGN

YYG 157.7

 PATILLO SPUR

YYG 155.2

 NE STONE MOUNTAIN

YYG 154.5

 DTC BLOCK SIGN

YYG 154.4

 SE STONE MOUNTAIN
YYG 152.9 HB-DED

YYG 149.0

 LITHONIA

“Chart B”

SG 559.0 TUCKER HOLDOUT
SG 561.0 TUCKER
SG 563.5 SE TUCKER
SG 567.5 BELT JUNCTION

Where the Inman Park belt joins (chart E).
SG 567.9 NE EMORY
SG 568.8 SE EMORY
SG 570.9 LENOX RD
MARTA
SG 572.0 MINA
NS
SG 574.0 EAST SWITCH
SG 574.7 EAST WYE
SG 575.0 HOWELLS YARD

Old SAL to Birmingham begins here.
SG 575.1 SOUTH WYE
SG 575.3 HUFF ROAD
TO TOP OF SLIDE, HOWELL TOWER

“Chart C”

WA 4.9/ANB 865.0 TILFORD
WA 4.7 PINE STREET
ANB 864.9 T.V.
ANB 864.8 SOUTH TILFORD
NORTH TUNNEL (UNDER CHART A)
SOUTH TUNNEL (UNDER NS)
ANB 862.8 BELLWOOD LEAD

Near intersection of Jefferson St. and Marietta Blvd. Goes to Bellwood yard.
ANB 862.4 SOUTH BELLWOOD

South of Joseph E. Boone, towards Andrews St.
ANB 861.8 CHAPPELL ROAD
ANB 859.7 GASCO

Where the tracks are running alongside I-20.
I-20
ANB 858.4 STRATFORD

Along MLK blvd.

I-285
ANB 855.6 FULCO JUNCTION

Near Cascade Rd.
ANB 853.9 NE BEN HILL

Between Melvin Dr. and Campbelton Rd.
ANB 853.7 BEN HILL
ANB 852.8 SE BEN HILL

Along Daniel Rd.
ANB 848.0 ACKERMAN

Near S. Fulton Pkwy
ANB 846.9 ??? tunnel under A&WP tracks
ANB 846.1 VAUGHN
ANB 845.0 NE UNION CITY
ANB 844.0 STONEWALL

MP 844 is next to the park in downtown Union City.
ANB 843.7 SE UNION CITY
ANB 842.6 DOGHOUSE

Nestle/Purina dog food factory.
ANB 836.9 HANSON
ANB 835.6 NE TYRONE
ANB 835.3 TYRONE
ANB 834.8 SE TYRONE
ANB 833.0 ROCK SPUR
ANB 828.1 NE PEACHTREE CITY
ANB 826.9 SE PEACHTREE CITY

“Chart D”

Shared with NS from Spring to East Point.

WA 1.0 JONES AVENUE
S 294.3 SPRING (NS)
S 293.8 PETERS ST (NS)
S 291.5 OAKLAND JCT (NS)
XXC 5.2 A&WP BELT LINE
S 290.0 TILLMAN (NS)
S 288.8 INDUSTRY YARD (NS)
XXB 6.4/S 228.2 EAST POINT
XXB 8.4 COLLEGE PK DEPOT
XXB 9.3 NE COLLEGE PK STORAGE
XXB 10.0 COLLEGE PK
XXB 10.8 SE COLLEGE PK STORAGE
XXB 12.4 NE RED OAK
XXB 13.4 RED OAK
XXB 15.5 SE RED OAK
XXB 15.5 VAUGHN
XXB 16.2 MIXON
XXB 16.4 STONEWALL

“Chart E”

SGB 567.1 BELT JUNCTION
SG 567.5
SGB 569.6 EAST LAKE DRIVE
SGB 569.9
YYG 166.5 KIRKWOOD

Etowah Subdivision

Georgia Subvision

Manchester Subdivision

W&A Subdivision

Eastern Continental Divide: North of Gainesville

Picking up where the last one left off, this gets you out of the burbs and into the woods. At the northern end, it gets you into the mountains, even.

The route through Gainesville is rather arbitrary and I’m not sure how close it follows the divide.

You are pretty much running parallel to US 23 (when you are not actually on US 23) all the way.

The early parts of this route are very close to Lake Lanier.

From Lula through Mt. Airy, you are running directly beside the Norfolk Southern main line.

I have only been as far north on this route as Alto, so I can’t really say what the remainder of it looks like.

The end point here looks to be about as far as you can follow the ECD on public roads. From here, the ECD turns westward and generally forms the Habersham/Rabun county border until meeting the Tennessee Valley Divide at Young Lick.  I don’t see any roads that directly follow this ridge, not even dirt Forest Service roads. From Young Lick, the ECD continues north on the Appalachian Trail. At that point, following the divide becomes more of a matter of hiking than driving.

ecd3-fixed

Google Maps Link

Start on Aviation Blvd, continue east from last time
Right on GA 60
Left on West Ridge Rd
Right on Athens St
Left on East Ridge Rd
Left on Old Cornelia Highway
Right on US 129
Left on White Sulphur Rd
Left to stay on White Sulphur Rd
Left on Cagle Rd
Right on GA 52
Sharp left on GA 51
Continue onto Main Street (Lula)
Continue onto Gainsville Highway
Continue onto Old Cornelia Highway
Continue onto Willingham Ave
Continue onto Main Street (Cornelia)
Right on Highland Ave
Left to stay on Highland Ave
Continue on Chenocetha Dr
Right on Wyly St
Continue on Dicks Hill Pkwy
Left on Rock Rd
Left on Antioch Church Rd
Right on US 23/US 441
Right on John Wood Rd
Left on Tom Born Rd
Right on Old Historic US 441
Left on The Orchard Rd
Right on Bear Gap Rd

Eastern Continental Divide: Duluth to Gainesville

Picking up where the previous route through Atlanta ended, this follows the ECD (within the limits of road placement) through the northeastern metro area. To be honest this is a rather boring drive through the suburbs. You can skip to the next post to pick it up where things get mildly interesting again.

The earlier part has some shenanigans with Old Peachtree Road, leaving it without turning and turning to stay on it at different points.

The segment on GA 20 is an area where no road follows the ECD. If you look close at a topo map you’ll see this section crosses a creek, not something you’ll see when following a ridge line.

The segment on GA 124 passes the site of Ft. Daniel, one of the original endpoints of the trail that became Peachtree Road.

The GA 13 portion mostly runs closely parallel to I-985.

Gainesville’s airport is an arbitrary stopping point dictated mainly by limitations on the number of route modifications that Google Maps allows you to make.

ecd2-fixed

(Aside: notice how close the divide is to Lake Lanier? The western edge of Lake Lanier’s drainage basin is also visible on this map, over near GA highway 9. The lake is really not very far at all from the boundaries of the area drained by it.)

Google Maps Link

Start at Old Peachtree Rd and I-985, go east
Left on Northbrook Pkwy
Continue on Old Peachtree Rd
Continue on Horizon Dr
Left on Old Peachtree Rd (yes, again)
Left on Rock Springs Rd
Right on GA 20
Left on Old Peachtree Rd
Left on GA 124/Braselton Hwy
Left on Hamilton Mill Rd
Right on Ridge Rd
Continue onto Hog Moutain Rd
Right on GA 13
Right on Industrial Blvd
Right on Aviation Blvd

Lynyrd Skynyrd’s recording studio is now an anonymous warehouse in Doraville

Per Wikipedia:

Studio One was a recording studio, located in the northern Atlanta, Georgia suburb of Doraville. The address was 3864 Oakcliff Industrial Court, Doraville Ga 30340. It is now occupied by a non related business and used as a warehouse.

Check out the list of albums recorded here, it includes not only four Lynyrd Skynyrd album but also probably the earliest recording featuring Ronnie James Dio on vocals.

In the 1970s and 1980s Doraville was a haven for blue-collar white Southerners, aka rednecks. This was gone by the early 2000s, as much of the original population was displaced by immigrants.

This is what the address on the wiki page looks like today. I almost have a hard time believing it. The red car in the center of the picture is parked next to the door of number 3864.

DSC_0273a

Howell Wye? More like Howell Weeds

One of the constant elements of southeastern railfanning is kudzu, sumac, honeysuckle, wisteria – you know, weeds. As summer turns to fall, we have one last chance to appreciate all that luscious green foliage.

Trains sneak out of the underbrush like wild animals.

DSC_0236a

In a few months this will all be gray and brown.

DSC_0210a

By the way, Pokeweed was traditionally used as a source of food in the South and in Appalachia even though it is toxic. I guess our ancestors would rather risk being poisoned by their food than not having any at all.

Sumac, visible in most of these shots, has some species that are used as flavorings (such as for tea), but I wouldn’t try it with this wild stuff.

Edit: this is probably Rhus glabra, smooth sumac. It is supposed to be edible, although it is not the same species cultivated for tea.

DSC_0203a

Kudzu leaves are edible as well but in the South you never know that the kudzu you pick wasn’t sprayed with something nasty in an unsuccessful attempt to kill it.

DSC_0250a

All these plants attract bees and wasps, which were buzzing around during these shots, although it was kind of hard to hear them over the trains.

Link: Flickr album with more of this