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Private company

Sandersville Railroad

Shortline railroad in U.S. state of Georgia

The Sandersville Railroad (reporting mark SAN) was originally operated from Tennille, Georgia, to Sandersville, Georgia and chartered in 1893 as a subsidiary of the Central of Georgia Railroad.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

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The Sandersville Railroad (reporting mark SAN) was originally operated from Tennille, Georgia, to Sandersville, Georgia and chartered in 1893 as a subsidiary of the Central of Georgia Railroad.2

Products and brands

Location

It was extended north five miles from Sandersville to a kaolin mine and processing plants near Deepstep. It continues to operate the same nine miles as of 2017 along with two branch lines and is nicknamed The Kaolin Road.

The company has its main office, dispatchers, locomotive and railcar maintenance shops, maintenance-of-way equipment shed, and locomotive fuel towers and sanding tower, all located in historic downtown Sandersville, Georgia.

Service

Sandersville Railroad services the many kaolin processing plants in the area such as the Kentucky Tennessee Clay Company and Imerys Pigments Plant 2 both in Deepstep, and the Imerys Pigments Plant 1, KaMin LLC., Burgess Pigment Company, and Thiele Kaolin Company plants, all in Sandersville. The railroad also services Bulk Chemical Services, Fulghum Fibers Pulpwood Chip Mill, and the two Duraline pipe manufacturing plants. The profitable road also handles inbound and outbound grain shipments. The company interchanges in Tennille, Georgia with the Norfolk Southern Railway Company's Savannah District trains of their Georgia Division. The NS trains 191 and 192 from Brosnan Yard in Macon, Georgia to Columbia, South Carolina and the NS Trains 372 and 373 with their companion NS Trains 378 and 377 from Brosnan Yard in Macon, Georgia to Dillard Yard in Savannah, Georgia all make pick ups and drop offs in Tennille for the locals NS G23 and G24 as well as the Sandersville Railroad Company.

In 2018, NS began operating an evening yard switcher to switch inbound cars from Macon, Savannah, and Augusta. The Sandersville Railroad has a new bulk transfer (Transflow) terminal located on Waco Mill Road near Tennille that offloads bulk products into waiting B&H Transfer Company tractor-trailer rigs. This facility is located across the road from the mainline and freight yard on the site of a former pulpwood loading yard that the company used to load pulpwood onto flatcars for transport to paper mills.

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The company also installed a state-of-the-art weigh-in-motion scale near its Waco Mill Yard in 2002 that weighs trains after being activated by a radio link from the locomotive. It lets the crews know it's working by activating the yellow and red signals and by speaking a computer radio message over the road channel. The scales transmit a weight chart to the office downtown so they will know which cars are overloaded and which ones are not. The Sandersville Railroad Company is one of the most profitable and professional shortline railroads in North America and has a well-maintained mainline of 132 and 136 pound-per-yard rail.

From Wikipedia’s article on Sandersville Railroad, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3

Sources

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