Southern Railway HO Scale Models

The Southern Railway of the United States traced its origins to 1894, when J.P. Morgan reorganized a collection of bankrupt southeastern railroads into a unified system. The Richmond and Danville Railroad and the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railway formed the core of this consolidation, and the resulting Southern Railway became one of the largest carriers in the American South, eventually operating approximately 8,000 route miles across thirteen states. Its main lines connected Washington, D.C., southward through the Carolinas and Georgia to Atlanta, with important extensions reaching into Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and as far west as New Orleans. Through the early and mid twentieth century, Southern Railway distinguished itself by aggressively investing in modernization at a time when many American railroads were in decline. Under the leadership of D. William Brosnan and later Graham Claytor during the 1960s and 1970s, the railroad upgraded its track, adopted heavier rail, and pursued productivity improvements that made it one of the most profitable Class I railroads in the country. Southern was also notably cautious about passenger service reductions, retaining some trains longer than many contemporaries, and it famously declined to join Amtrak when that national passenger corporation was formed in 1971, instead continuing to operate its own passenger services independently for several more years before eventually transferring them. The railroad's most transformative moment came in 1982, when Southern Railway merged with the Norfolk and Western Railway to form the Norfolk Southern Corporation, with the operating subsidiary renamed Norfolk Southern Railway. The merger created a powerful eastern railroad capable of competing directly with the newly formed CSX Transportation system, which had itself emerged from a parallel series of consolidations involving the Seaboard Coast Line and Chessie System railroads. Much of the former Southern Railway main line mileage remains in active service today under the Norfolk Southern flag, and the SOU reporting mark gradually gave way to the NS mark in the years following the merger. Southern Railway's legacy endures in its reputation for sound management and financial discipline, qualities that shaped the corporate culture of Norfolk Southern well into the modern era.