Community Corner

Historic Duluth Train Depot Reopening

Celebration planned at 3 p.m. Sunday (Sept. 18) at its new location at the entrance to the Southeastern Railway Museum.

A grand reopening celebration for the restored and relocated Duluth Train Depot is scheduled for 3 p.m. Sunday (Sept. 18) at the Southeastern Railway Museum. The historic train station was built in 1871 to serve the city.

“This historic structure was once a major gateway to our region,” said Randy Pirkle, administrator of the Southeastern Railway Museum in Duluth. “After nearly a century of service to passengers and decades of use as an office, we are proud to have the opportunity to open the restored Duluth depot to the public once more.”

The depot was built by a predecessor of the Southern Railway, part of today’s Norfolk Southern Corp., and was one of several constructed in the area in 1871, according to information provided by the city. The railroad primarily served the cotton trade, which was cultivated on a reported 50,000 acres in the area. Since Forsyth and Milton counties had no rail service at the time, the addition of the passenger station at Duluth made the city a center for shipping and commercial activity.

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Rail travel also offered convenient access to Atlanta for conducting business and shopping. The evening arrival of “Belle,” one of the daily passenger trains to and from the city, became a popular gathering time for local residents.

Declines in passenger service and changes in rail freight led to the closing of the Duluth depot by the early 1950s. Eventually, the Southern Railway, which then owned the property, encouraged the city to find a use for the building. The city lacked the resources to do so, and in 1975 the depot building was moved by the late Scott Hudgens, a local developer, to a site on Pleasant Hill Road where the Joan Glancy Rehabilitation Center is located today. The depot was used as an office for a major development project in progress at the time.

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In 1986 Hudgens again moved the depot across Pleasant Hill Road to W. P. Jones Park. At this location, the city used the building as a police substation and an office for city parks personnel and related recreation programs.

The depot was moved to the entrance to the Southeastern Railway Museum on Buford Highway in August 2008. Under a lease agreement between Duluth and the museum, the city retained ownership of the depot, and the museum became responsible for restoring the building and operating it as an historic exhibit.

So after providing a variety of services to generations of Duluth residents, the depot once again welcomes visitors in a location across from the same railroad line it faced when it was put into service 140 years ago. The Southeastern Railway Museum is located at 3595 Buford Hwy., just east of Pleasant Hill Road.

In operation since 1970, the museum is Georgia’s Official Transportation History Museum. Occupying a 35-acre site, the museum features exhibits dealing with the history and importance of transportation in the development of the state and the region.

The museum's collection includes roughly 90 pieces of railroad rolling stock, including historic locomotives, passenger and freight cars, and maintenance vehicles. The museum also exhibits historic automobiles, firefighting equipment, and buses from MARTA and its predecessors.

Because many of the exhibits are outdoors, the Southeastern Railway Museum varies its operating hours seasonally. Current days and hours, along with educational programming and other information, are available on the museum website.


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