Changing Rail Lines

This map shows the rail lines immediately surrounding the site of Terminal Station in 1878 (prior to the 1905 opening), 1928 (around the station’s “heyday”), and in 1955 (as rail travel begins to decline, but before the 1970 closing of the station). The rail lines were digitized from maps held in Emory University’s library collections.

Use the Visible Layers button in the top right corner to toggle on and off the different map layers.

Atlanta’s Union Station, the other major station of the time, is just to the east of the digitized rail lines. The stories of the two neighboring stations are inherently interconnected, but this project focuses exclusively on Terminal Station.

Passenger Rail Connectivity to Other Cities

In it’s prime years, Terminal Station served anywhere from 80 to 100 passenger trains a day, connecting riders to cities all over Georgia and the Southeast, with easy connections to most anywhere in the country. By the time of its closing in 1970, there were only three trains passing through the station.

Now Atlanta is only served by one inter-city passenger train, Amtrak’s Crescent, which travels from New Orleans to New York with stops in Atlanta two times a day. The train now operates out of the Brookwood/Peachtree station, on the north side of Atlanta and well out of the easily-accessible heart of downtown.