Private company

Atlantic and Western Railway

Logo: GWRR.com, Non-free logo, via Wikipedia3

Class III railroad in North Carolina

The Atlantic and Western Railway (reporting mark ATW) is a Class III short-line railroad operating about 9 miles (14 km) of track in Lee County, North Carolina. Atlantic and Western is part of Genesee & Wyoming Inc. and formerly part of Rail Management and Consulting. It was reorganized in 1927 from the Atlantic and Western Railroad.2 It is headquartered in Sanford.1 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 20, 2026.

Overview

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The Atlantic and Western Railway (reporting mark ATW) is a Class III short-line railroad operating about 9 miles (14 km) of track in Lee County, North Carolina. Atlantic and Western is part of Genesee & Wyoming Inc. and formerly part of Rail Management and Consulting. It was reorganized in 1927 from the Atlantic and Western Railroad.2

Corporate structure

Atlantic and Western Railway is part of a group headed by Genesee & Wyoming. 48 entities, 3 countries on record. Switch between the flow chart and the network, and select any entity to see its details.

Built from parent and subsidiary links from GLEIF, the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (CC0); subsidiaries, stakes and holdings from Wikidata (CC0). Each entity in the chart links to its source.

The story

Originally the A&W ran between Sanford and Lillington, 25 miles. In 1961, the line was abandoned except for 3 miles from Sanford eastward. In the 1970s, the ATW's fleet of modernized 40-foot boxcars in food lading service were some of the last 40-foot boxcars in revenue service in the United States. The railroad company was reorganized in 1988, following its sale to Rail Management Corporation.

In 2001 the A&W began operating between Sanford and Cumnock over a line that was originally a segment of the Cape Fear and Yadkin Valley Railway and subsequently Southern Railway and Norfolk Southern. The railway was sold in 2005 to the Gennessee and Wyoming Corporation. In 2011, Norfolk Southern granted the A&W additional rights to serve customers between Cumnock and Brickhaven over the original Norfolk Southern Railway.

From Wikipedia’s article on Atlantic and Western Railway, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4

Subsidiaries and ownership

Parent company

Former owners and parents

From Wikidata.1

Timeline

  1. 2005Acquired Acquired by Genesee & Wyoming1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

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