All aboard? GDOT asks residents to weigh in on restoring passenger train service to Macon

On April 30, 1971, the Nancy Hanks made her final ride through Georgia.

In Macon, reservations for the passenger train sold out. Hundreds of people gathered along the Nancy’s route, many holding farewell signs. Some dabbed misty eyes at the thought of Macon being without passenger rail service for the first time since 1843.

Lisa McLendon is one of the many residents who still remember the blue-and-gray train fondly. As a child, McLendon took the Nancy to Atlanta with her mother to go shopping. 

“It was a rite of passage. I would be dressed up for the day and was a ‘big girl,’” said McLendon, whose love for trains also stems from her grandfather and uncle working for Southern Railway.

She’d like to see train service return to the city.

The Georgia Department of Transportation wants to know how many people share that desire.

The department is surveying the public through Aug. 6 to gauge interest in Atlanta-to-Savannah rail service that could include a stop in Macon. 

The study area for the project includes Macon, Atlanta, Athens, Statesboro, Milledgeville, Augusta, Savannah and others. The survey includes questions about how much passengers would be willing to pay for a regular passenger train and how much for a more costly high-speed option.

Rail service that includes Macon has been discussed for years, leaving many, including McLendon, skeptical but hopeful.

“This would be a game changer for Central Georgia by unlocking higher paying opportunities in the Atlanta and Savannah areas for people who are otherwise deterred from seeking work in those markets due to the long commute,” Dustin Riley wrote, responding to The Melody’s call-out for opinions.

However, he added, “for this route to be successful, it has to be priced at a level that is realistic for common people to afford and not priced like a luxury experience.”

The study includes other routes through Georgia that would exclude Macon, including an Atlanta-to-Athens-to-Savannah option, as well as an Atlanta-to-Augusta-to-Savannah plan.

For the Atlanta-to-Macon-Savannah route to gain favor, residents need to weigh in by taking the survey, local leaders said.

People lobbied to have I-75 and I-16 run through Macon, “let’s do the same thing and put the passenger rail stop in the Macon Terminal Station and put us on the map,” said former Macon Mayor Robert Reichert, chairman of the I-75 Central Corridor Coalition, a nonprofit that promotes smart growth, passenger rail and transit-friendly improvements.

While some residents are jaded, given how often the idea for a new rail service has come up over the last four decades, John MacNeil said he has reason to believe this time might be different. “We have a clearer pathway than we have had in a long time,” said MacNeil, a member of the Macon Area Transportation Study Citizens Advisory Committee.

“We have the right leadership. We have the right opportunity. This is something we can make happen.”

Past discussions have gone nowhere due to a lack of sufficient funds and failure to gain access to Norfolk Southern and CSX freight rail lines.

MacNeil said he believes there’s a chance the project would get the necessary state funding to pursue a higher federal match if the costs stay within reason.

Though the current survey concludes in August, the study will continue until 2028.

MacNeil said Georgia should take a lesson from other states, such as North Carolina and Virginia.

They have trains connecting their cities because “they have not started with an ultra high-speed option with a high starting budget,” he said. “They started slow in order to go fast.”

Decades ago, when the Nancy Hanks ended a 24-year run through Georgia, train travel had lost its luster. When the service first began in 1947, the Nancy carried more than one million passengers annually. By 1970, its last full year, just over 50,000 people rode the train.

But Riley, who wrote to The Melody, believes the convenience of a train can once again hold appeal — and not just for those who would ride it.

“For people who already make the commute to Atlanta,” he wrote, “this would benefit drivers on I-75 by giving those who want it an alternative means of travel, reducing the total number of cars on the interstate and, therefore, reducing traffic congestion.”