Recognizing the 20th Anniversary of the Historic Sam Shortline Excursion Train

Floor Speech

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Mr. BISHOP of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize the Historic Savannah, Americus, & Montgomery (SAM) Shortline Excursion Train on the 20th anniversary of its first public run on October 26, 2002.

While the current SAM Shortline Excursion Train had its maiden voyage only twenty years ago, its ancestor and namesake, the Savannah, Americus, & Montgomery (SAM) Railroad Company, was founded during the 1880s by Americus attorney and banker, Colonel Samuel Hugh Hawkins. The Americus region saw its first population and construction booms with the arrival of Southwestern Railroad in the early 1850s. Following the American Civil War, the people of southwest Georgia saw the railroad as a bright new opportunity for economic development and prosperity. But Southwestern and its lessee, the Central Railroad & Banking Company of Georgia, held a monopoly on the railroads and many in Americus began to feel the effects of exorbitant and discriminatory rates, thus contributing to a decline in local trade. When surrounding cities began proposing new rail lines to bypass Americus, Colonel Hawkins led the charge to construct new lines that would pass directly through the city, leading local investors to organize the Americus, Preston & Lumpkin Railroad (AP&L) in 1884 to ensure that Americus would continue to dominate the region's trade and continue to grow into the Twentieth Century. In 1888, Hawkins and his associates decided to extend the AP&L both east and west to create a direct route between Montgomery, Alabama, and Savannah. Later that year, the 265-mile project would be renamed as the Savannah, Americus, Montgomery Railway, known simply as ``The SAM.''

Before the SAM's mainline was constructed through the city, the lands surrounding Americus in Sumter County were largely undeveloped and sparsely populated. Following the boom in trade and wealth brought by the SAM, several new towns were founded throughout the region, including Richland, Cordele, Vidalia, and Lyons among others. The first new community, however, was created in Sumter County a few miles west of Americus near an older community called the Plains of Dura. Once SAM's main rail line approached the Plains of Dura community, residents of surrounding settlements began moving closer to the railroad and eventually chartered the town of Plains--the renowned home of famous Georgia peanut farmer and our 39th President, Jimmy Carter. Once fully developed, SAM Railway became the lifeblood of the city of Americus and spurred a second construction and population boom that would reshape the city as a powerful economic nexus in the region. During this period, the city saw the founding of several vital local businesses, such as the Americus Guano Company, the Americus Oil Company, the Americus Illuminating and Power Company, the Americus Construction Company, the Americus Grocery Company, as well as the town's crowning achievement--the Windsor Hotel.

Despite its transformational success, SAM was not immune from the economic struggles of the era, and in 1893, amid a financial panic, Colonel Hawkins and his associates were forced to sell their beloved SAM Railway Company to John Skelton of Richmond, Virginia who would reorganize the company as the Georgia and Alabama Railway in 1895. Samuel Hawkins went on to lose nearly $1 million of his own money in an unsuccessful attempt to keep the railroad under local control. Nevertheless, the railroad he initially founded proved vital to the southwest Georgia community as it provided jobs, trade, freight transportation, as well as an economic engine for the budding towns and cities across southwest Georgia and Alabama.

At the start of the Twenty-first Century, local residents of the southwest Georgia region developed plans to revive the former SAM Railway as a passenger excursion route. By 2002, the excursion founders had recovered and refurbished several state-owned vintage railcars to seat up to eighty people. They rebranded the railway as the Historic SAM Shortline Railroad to honor the rich history that shaped the region. The reborn SAM Shortline Excursion Train follows the legendary route from Cordele to Plains and gives riders scenic views of cotton fields, pecan groves, and peanut farms while riding in climate-controlled, train cars to visit sites such as the Georgia Rural Telephone Museum, Historic Downtown Americus, President Jimmy Carter's hometown of Plains and his boyhood home and farm in Archery, Georgia.

Being Georgia's only rolling state park, the excursion train hosted an impressive passenger load in 2021, even despite the COVID-19 pandemic. That year alone, the SAM Shortline Excursion Train boarded 17,000 passengers who were able to experience the fascinating history of President Carter's several political campaigns and life, as well as a glimpse of rural life at the turn of the Twentieth Century. The SAM Shortline also offers special rides throughout the year, including Halloween trick-or-treat trains, Christmas trains, dinner trains, and fundraisers, marking it a community treasure to be enjoyed by all throughout the year. The success and immense popularity of the excursion train resulted in an impressive economic impact of $2,697,496.00 across Sumter and Crisp Counties in 2021.

Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join my wife, Vivian; and me, along with the more than 730,000 people of the Second Congressional District, in recognizing the Historic SAM Shortline Railroad for twenty wonderful years of bringing people closer to southwest Georgia's beautiful landscape and rich history.

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