Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad
| Reporting mark | AGS |
|---|---|
| Locale | Chattanooga, TN-Meridian, MS (New Orleans, LA from 1969) |
| Dates of operation | 1877–present |
| Successor | Southern Railway |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge |
| Previous gauge | |
| Length | 528 miles (850 km) |
The Alabama Great Southern Railroad (reporting mark AGS) is a railroad in the U.S. states of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. It is an operating subsidiary of the Norfolk Southern Corporation (NS), running southwest from Chattanooga (where it connects with the similarly owned Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railway) to New Orleans through Birmingham and Meridian. The AGS also owns about a 30% interest in the Kansas City Southern-controlled Meridian-Shreveport Meridian Speedway.
In 1970 AGS reported 3854 million net ton-miles (5627 million net tonne-kilometers) of revenue freight and 105 million passenger miles (169 million passenger kilometers); at the end of that year it operated 528 miles (850 km) of road and 1,084 miles (1,745 km) of track. (Those totals do not include Class II subsidiary Louisiana Southern.)
The AGS's oldest predecessor was the Wills Valley Railroad, chartered by the Alabama Legislature in February 1852 to extend from a point on the Alabama and Tennessee River Railroad northeast to the Georgia state line. In January and February 1854, respectively, the Georgia and Tennessee legislatures authorized the company to continue its road to a point on the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad. The North East and South West Alabama Railroad was chartered in Alabama in December 1853 and Mississippi in February 1854, to extend from Meridian through Livingston, Eutaw, Tuscaloosa, and Elyton (Birmingham) in the direction of Knoxville, Tennessee. Both companies received land grants through a June 1856 federal law, assigned by Alabama in January 1858 to the North East and South West from Mississippi to near Gadsden and to the Wills Valley from near Gadsden to Georgia.
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