Atlanta & West Point Railroad The Atlanta & LaGrange Rail Road, chartered in 1847, was completed in May, 1854. The 80-mile line from East Point, about six miles southwest of Atlanta, to LaGrange and West Point was renamed the Atlanta & West Point Rail Road in 1857. It became a key link in the South's 1200-mile through route from the Potomac River at Alexandria to the Gulf at Mobile and a major impetus to Atlanta's emergence as a rail center. Much of the early investment in the line came from the Georgia Railroad & Banking Company, an Augusta company whose railroads between Augusta, Athens, and Atlanta were among the state’s earliest. Until the construction of six miles of its own track in 1889, A&WP trains entered Atlanta on the tracks of the Macon & Western Railroad (later Central of Georgia). For many years the A&WP was controlled by the Atlantic Coast Line through the ACL’s lease of the railroad properties of the Georgia Railroad & Banking Company. The railroad operated under its own name until 1983 when it and the Georgia Railroad were absorbed into the Seaboard System Railroad. After 1903 the A&WP and the Western Railway of Alabama operated jointly under the nickname West Point Route. An earlier nickname was Atlanta and New Orleans Short Line. Note: In his book Place Names of Georgia, Kenneth Krakow indicates that West Point was named well before the coming of the railroad. The name referred to the town’s being the westernmost Georgia community on this stretch of the Chattahoochee. Suggested Reading: Robert H. Hanson. The West Point Route: The Atlanta & West Point Rail Road and The Western Railway of Alabama. Lynchburg, VA: TLC Publishing, 2007. 1870 timetable (170K) 1883 map (282K) 1895 timetable (158K) 1906 timetable (266K) 1969 map (80K) For more information, vintage A&WP photos, and an online photo tour, see atlantarails.com.   Georgia's Railroad History & Heritage. Copyright, Steve Storey. Railroad History | The Depot List | Locomotives On Display | Odds & Ends | Sources & References | Home