Ocilla, Pinebloom & Valdosta Railway A Georgia lumber mill. The OP&V, originally called the Fitzgerald, Pinebloom & Valdosta, was a logging road and occasional common carrier owned by the Gray Lumber Company. The 52-mile Lax-Pinebloom-Nashville line was completed in 1901-03. In 1906, the OP&V sold the section south of Pinebloom to the Douglas, Augusta, & Gulf Railway (which was controlled by the Georgia & Florida). It continued to operate the tracks north of Pinebloom. (Pinebloom was a flag station on the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad a mile east of Willacoochee with a 1896 population of about 200. The Gray Brothers saw mill was its largest enterprise.) The line was renamed the Ocilla, Pinebloom & Valdosta Railroad in 1910, and in 1915 the Henderson Lumber Company gained control. The 1918 Report of the Georgia Railroad Commission listed the OP&V as a 27-mile line between Gladys, a point on the Ocilla Southern Railroad, and Shaw’s Still, which was about nine miles southeast of Willacoochee. Two years later the Commission indicated that the OP&V had been dismantled and listed its successor road, the Willacoochee & DuPont, as a 9.5-mile line between Willacoochee and Shaws Still. Maps, Timetables, and Other Information: 1895 map (50K) 1898 map (56K) 1902 map (56K) 1904 map (32K) 1904 timetable (70K) 1917 map and equipment list (122K) 1918 timetable (39K)   A stand of virgin long leaf pine. After the Civil War, industrialized logging by firms such as the Gray Lumber Company destroyed vast tracts of the South's original forests. (From: Natural Resources of Georgia, prepared by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources and the Georgia Department of Education, Atlanta [1938]. Online at HathiTrust Digital Library here.) RailGa.com. Georgia's Railroad History & Heritage. © Steve Storey Railroad History | The Depot List | Locomotives On Display | Odds & Ends | Sources & References | Home