Editing Railroad history (section)

==== Air Line Railroad Company of South Carolina ====

* Federal Decisions, Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme Court, 1885, page 96: [https://books.google.com/books?id=SO07AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA96&lpg=PA96&dq=%22air+line+railroad%22+%22south+carolina%22+1856&source=bl&ots=V8ucMEA7Vv&sig=4eETocV6TMnMf6IiNX869F0hNFk&hl=en&ei=kWEZTYLcOYSclgfzsrzNDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBoQ6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=%22air%20line%20railroad%22%20%22south%20carolina%22%201856&f=false/]
* The Georgia legislature on March 5, 1856 authorized the Georgia Air Line Railroad Company to build a railroad from Atlanta to the SC state line in the direction of the Anderson, SC courthouse.
* The Air Line Railroad was created by an act of the South Carolina General Assembly December 20, 1856, to connect the Georgia line to the Anderson, SC courthouse and then continue on to "some point of connection with the Charlotte and South Carolina Railroad, in the direction of Charlotte, North Carolina."
* [Commentary: it appears that the Civil War halted progress on both. We've heard that no track was laid by either company.]
* The North Carolina legislature on August 3, 1868 authorized the Air Line Company in South Carolina to extend up to Charlotte.
* Also in 1868, simultaneously the Georgia and South Carolina legislatures worked to authorize each railroad to merge with other railroads; Georgia approved on September 7, and South Carolina approved on September 18.
* On June 20, 1870, the two railroads officially merged into one corporation, the '''Atlanta & Richmond Air Line Railway Company'''.
* The controlling party in the merger was the Richmond and Danville Railroad, according to: Cox, Jim. Rails across Dixie: A History of Passenger Trains in the American South. Mcfarland, 2016.