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Atlanta to beyond Pell City on The Crescent – US Rail Journeys Series 3 Episode 15
Atlanta to beyond Pell City on The Crescent continues my journey as we slowly travel towards Birmingham on The Crescent enroute to New Orleans.
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Leaving Atlanta:
We are 49 minutes late as we pull out of the station. Our route takes us past the a panoramic view of many of the city’s skyscrapers. I am disappointed that Wells Fargo’s building is not like a stage coach!
We are soon into countryside as we travel across Georgia.
The train rolls through a number of small towns, or in US speak ‘cities’. They are spread out like a ribbon along Georgia’s US Route 78. Each community seems to have a selection of auto dealers and repairers and a number of churches along the road which runs next to the tracks.
We pass through Powder Springs, Temple, Bremen before we reach Tallapoosa which, with around 3,100 residents, is the last town of any size before we reach the state line.
The Alabama – Georgia State Line:
We cross the State Line and soon pass the small communities of Muscadine, Fruithurst and Edwardsville as we travel through the countryside before reaching Heflin. As we leave Heflin we pass what looks like a field of parked cars which, on taking a closer look, turns out to be a car cemetery.
The journey slows down:
We stop, we wait for a while. Then we reverse which makes me wonder if we have been in a siding. We stop again. All the while the Amtrak Train Tracker is telling me that we’ll arrive early into New Orleans.
Apparently the network can’t detect our train and so the conductor is having to walk along the track beside the train!
Anniston:
The station dates from 1925 and The Crescent is the only train to stop there today. A restoration project in 2008 has made it available for today’s passengers. 2,486 passengers used the station in 2022.
We leave Anniston 2 hours and 12 minutes late!
Our journey continues through countryside and small communities, through Pell City and on towards Birmingham. We have travelled around 120 miles from Atlanta in 5 hours, definitely not high speed!
Next up:
If you enjoy these podcasts please join me in a couple of weeks as I continue my journey south on The Crescent towards New Orleans.
Links:
To visit the Amtrak website please follow this link.
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Music:
AKM Music licenses Steam Railway and Summer Party for use in this podcast.
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