The Alabama Southern Railroad (reporting mark ABS) is a class III railroad that operates in the southern United States.
ABS is one of several short line railroads owned by the Watco Companies.
The ABS consists of 85 miles (137 km) of track between Columbus, Mississippi and Birmingham, Alabama, with trackage rights over Kansas City Southern Railway/CSX Transportation between Brookwood, Alabama and Birmingham. The line interchanges with the Kansas City Southern at Columbus, with the Norfolk Southern Railway at Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and with CSX at Birmingham.
The tracks were leased to Watco Companies by the Kansas City Southern effective November 6, 2005, resulting in the formation of three railroads; the Arkansas Southern Railroad, Louisiana Southern Railroad, and the Alabama Southern Railroad. The Alabama Southern consists of the Kansas City Southern's Tuscaloosa Branch, which includes the Tuscaloosa Subdivision east of Columbus to Tuscaloosa, the Warrior Branch between Tuscaloosa and Fox, Alabama, and the Brookwood Branch from Brookwood Junction to Brookwood.
Famous quotes containing the words alabama, southern and/or railroad:
“While over Alabama earth
These words are gently spoken:
Serve—and hate will die unborn.
Love—and chains are broken.”
—Langston Hughes (20th century)
“Southern trees bear a strange fruit
Blood on the leaf and blood at the root
Black bodies swingin’ in the southern breeze
Strange fruit hangin’ in the poplar trees.”
—Billie Holiday [Eleanor Fagan] (1915–1959)
“Though the railroad and the telegraph have been established on the shores of Maine, the Indian still looks out from her interior mountains over all these to the sea.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)