End of the Line For Cartersville Train Company

A rail car company in Northwest Georgia has told state officials over six hundred people will be laid off this summer.

Employees at the Trinity North American Freight Car plant in Cartersville make rail road equipment. And by the end of August, that work will be idled as the plant is closed and some 659 fewer employees will be laid off.

The company did release a statement saying "The plant closure is due to a downturn in orders in that sector of the business."

Northwest Georgia is already reeling from chronic double digit unemployment. Counselors from the Georgia Department of Labor will meet with Trinity workers next week to go over services that the state agency can provide. Trinity’s Cartersville plant has been open since 2001.

'Unbreakable': driver walks away from truck-train crash

It's rare, but it happens. No one was hurt when a truck hauling lumber collided with a moving freight train in south Georgia.

The Georgia State Patrol said 44-year-old Nathaniel Swan of Albany slammed into the railroad car at a crossing in rural Terrell County. It happened just before 10 a.m. Monday.

Troopers said the crash occurred when Swan swerved to avoid a pickup truck that had stopped at the railroad crossing.

Swan was walking around the wreckage when emergency crews arrived at the scene.

The rail car was hauling sulfur and had minor damage. But Swan's 18-wheeler was heavily damaged.

(The Associated Press)

Commuter rail plan stuck in limbo

A state board of transportation committee held a public hearing Wednesday to discuss whether commuter rail would ever come to Georgia. They did not find an answer.

State officials have studied the feasibility of commuter rail lines between Atlanta, middle Georgia and Athens for years. They have looked at the costs, the ridership, and the routes. Georgia has $107 million in federal and state funds to spend on a line that runs from Atlanta to Lovejoy. Norfolk Southern has agreed to rent its rail lines to the state for a commuter service.

State board members reviewed all of those facts at the meeting, and then asked the public to comment.

"We're planning. We're re-planning. We're designing. We're consulting, and we're going in circles," said state Rep. Steve Davis (R-McDonough). He said the state should forget about commuter rail and instead focus on improving roads.

But most speakers argued in favor of the rail line as one alternative to clogged highways.

"We need all the capacity we can get our hands on because we feel like we're choking to death on congestion, and we're starting to lose business," said Terry Chastain of the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce.

In the end, committee members were too far apart to recommend anything to the full board. Committee chairman Larry Walker concluded the meeting without a vote. He says even if the committee recommended the state go forward with the Atlanta-to-Lovejoy line, the full board would vote that option down.

"I think we don't need to do that right now," Walker said. He, like the majority of committee members, wanted updated estimates of the costs and revenue from a commuter rail line. The committee will meet again in a few weeks.