NS donates Southern Railway archives to Atlanta museum

Norfolk Southern Corp. has donated the full Southern Railway company archives, as well as $500,000, to the Atlanta History Center.

The archives, which include hundreds of thousands of pages of documents — from photos to construction plans and reports — show the history of Atlanta’s transit growth from the 1840s to today.

The $500,000 will help the museum digitize and preserve the collection. Southern Railway merged with Norfolk & Western in 1982 to create the present-day Norfolk Southern Railway.

NS Chairman, President and CEO James Squires said the archives belong to Atlanta because of the history they represent.

"The history of Southern Railway is inseparable from the history of this region," Squires said in a press release.

Decades of rail history is ultimately the reason Atlanta has grown into the city it is today, said Sheffield Hale, president and CEO of the Atlanta History Center.

"This collection is crucial to uncovering the many stories behind the city's transformation," Hale said. "We're excited to have the opportunity to preserve this history and make it publicly available for students and teachers, researchers, and those who are simply interested in Atlanta."