Southern Railway Company

Southern Railway Company was a railroad system in the southern United States that incorporated almost 150 prior railroads. It was organized in 1894 by the financier J.P. Morgan to take over a number of other railroads, including the Richmond and Danville, formed in 1847, and the East Tennessee, Virginia, and Georgia, formed in 1887.

The company’s earliest antecedent, the South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company, was chartered in 1827 and operated the country’s first regularly scheduled passenger train, on Christmas Day, 1830. In three years the line became the world’s longest railway. Many of the predecessor lines played a strategic role in the American Civil War, although a number of them suffered destruction by Northern troops. The current system grew out of the reorganization following the war.

The company acquired a number of other railroads over the years until by the 1970s it served all the states south of the Ohio and Potomac rivers and east of the Mississippi except West Virginia. It extended from Washington, D.C., and St. Louis, Mo., to Brunswick, Ga., and Jacksonville, Fla., on the Atlantic, and to Mobile, Ala., and New Orleans, La., on the Gulf of Mexico.

From the 1940s, the Southern followed a policy of simplifying its organization until by the late 20th century the system included a number of separately operated subsidiaries that operated over 10,000 miles (16,100 km) of track. Much of their freight revenue came from coal, pulp and paper, and chemicals.

In 1982, the Southern was merged with the Norfolk and Western Railway Company and thereafter was operated by Norfolk Southern Corporation, a holding company. In July 2025, Union Pacific Railroad agreed to acquire Norfolk Southern for $85 billion, pending regulatory approval.