The Chamblee to Roswell Railroad

Although there are practically no remnants of it left, there was a railroad, the Roswell Railroad, that ran from south of Roswell to Chamblee from 1881 until 1921.  It carried both passengers and freight.  The north end of the line was located south of the Chattahoochee River near Roberts Drive in Roswell.  A bridge over the Chattahoochee was planned but never built.

Ike Roberts, after whom Roberts Drive in Roswell was named, was an employee of the Southern Railway when it decided to construct the railroad. Roberts helped in the grading and track-laying for the line and worked as an engineer during the entire time the railroad was in existence. His home on Roberts Drive still stands. One of three railroad employee houses which was the near the tracks also still stands at Old Dunwoody Station near the intersection of Chamblee Dunwoody and Mount Vernon roads.

In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt rode the train to Roswell to visit his mother's childhood home, Bulloch Hall. Along the way he made a campaign whistle stop in Dunwoody, which was established in the early 1830’s and named for a certain Major Charles Dunwody. Interestingly, the extra "o" was added in error on a banking note at some point in the town’s early history and the incorrect spelling stuck.  Dunwoody had settled in the area and lobbied for a post-office for the community, which was named after him as a consequence.

The southern terminus of the railroad in Chamblee was located about a half-mile south of Oglethorpe University on Peachtree Road. Incidentally, Chamblee was originally called “Roswell Junction”. The railroad ran from Chamblee across Little Nancy Creek, then through the present site of Chamblee First Methodist Church, then through the former Ramada Inn site at I-285 and Chamblee Dunwoody Road, then onward along Roberts Drive and North Ridge Road. It then travelled northerly along the east side of present Dunwoody Place where it reached the Roswell Depot the south side of the River. The Roswell depot was located on the property where the North River Shopping Center on Highway 9 is currently located.  Wouldn’t this have been a great alternative to the cursed I-285 and 400 interchange?  There was no way to turn the train around once it reached Roswell, so it had to travel back to Chamblee in reverse.  In Chamblee, the line connected to the Atlanta and Charlotte Airline Railway (called “airline” because the route was relatively short and flat and “air-line” was a term used synonymously with “bee-line” at the time).

According to the Atlanta Journal and Constitution (“AJC”), embankments built for the planned bridge to extend the line across the Chattahoochie still exist along Vickery Creek, however, this author was unable to positively identify them from a recent paddling trip to Vickery Creek.

Historian Michael Hitt has authored a book on the Roswell Railroad entitled Riding the Iron Road, which details the history of the railroad and contains detailed maps of its 9.8 mile route.