This is a rough transcript
How’s everyone doing today? Thanks for coming out today. It’s a gorgeous day out; sun is shining.
Not hot, it’s cooler. I agree absolutely. See that’s I like that positive spirit.
See, that’s — I like that positive spirit. That’s the way to start off — A good day for train ride. Absolutely, absolutely.
But I really do appreciate everybody coming out today. We talk about trains, we talk about history, and more importantly, we’re going to have some fun, I think, in doing this. And I really just came because they told me there was going to be coffee. So that’s what got me here.
So I love any opportunity that I can get to talk about railroads and trains. I — somebody was asking me before we started, how do I get into this? I have a history background, and I was a history major in college, and I always loved railroads and trains growing up, and I merged the two, and I got into photography and started taking pictures of trains.
I’m a full time writer as my sort of nine to five jobs, so to speak, and I just started merging everything together, and it’s a hobby and a job and a passion that has spiraled out of control. Then I started writing books, and it just got crazy. It went off the rails, so to speak, and here we are today.
And so I appreciate the opportunity to talk a little bit about my passion and my hobby. And more importantly, I appreciate everyone coming out today to learn and — learn something new, hopefully that maybe you didn’t know, and maybe have a little fun in the process. And if nothing else, if all goes off the rails, if I could borrow that joke again, we do have a set of Connect Four here, so we could always just play some Connect Four.
So a few weeks ago, I was at an event … in downtown Smyrna, and in introducing myself, it was a business association, and introducing myself to the group, I mentioned that I had written a few books about railroads. And a few minutes later, I was chatting with somebody, and I wasn’t he might, I don’t know if you believe that I actually written some books about railroads. He started asking me about what railroads I had chronicled, and I pointed out and said, “the railroad that runs right next to the building.”
Now we’re in Smyrna, so we were talking about this particular Railroad, which is the Western and Atlantic Railroad. If anyone’s ever been to downtown Marietta, you’re familiar with the western Atlantic railroad. It runs about a block away from the square and as a quick aside, this railroad is actually owned by the state of Georgia. So if anyone is a taxpayer in the state of Georgia, and I’m not making any assumptions here or anything, but if you pay your taxes in a timely fashion, you are a partial owner of a railroad, the Western and Atlantic railroad, that runs from Atlanta to Chattanooga, Tennessee.
And now this gentleman I was chatting with, he was really intrigued. “Oh, that’s really interesting.” And then I pointed to the other side of the building, and I said, the one that ran right there. He’s looking at me like, “Who is this? What is this guy talking about? That’s a busy road.”
It’s Atlanta road. If you’ve been to downtown Smyrna, it’s literally the busy street that runs right through the heart of town. And I said, “No, I’m serious. A railroad used to run right along that road.” I think he thought I was just making something up. And I think he thought I was trying to make a joke, pulling over on him.
And I could understand why you would think that, because it almost sounds a little fictional. Anyone who’s driven along Atlanta Road in downtown Smyrna knows it’s a busy road. There is no way in the world that a railroad used to run right where this busy street is located, right? Right” I mean, that’s crazy. Why would that happen? Why would that be?