HawkinsRails - Cordele Railfan Festival

Cordele Railfan Festival

cordele_state The Cordele Railfan Festival is an annual railroad event held in downtown Cordele, Georgia, featuring model railroads, railroad artists, and shuttle trains operated by the SAM Shortline Railroad. Downtown Cordele features the junction of three railroads and therefore offers a great deal of railfan action. CSX Transportation (original Atlanta Birmingham & Coast trackage) and Norfolk Southern (original Georgia Southern & Florida, later Southern) meet here, plus the Genesee & Wyoming shortline Heart of Georgia Railroad.

SAM Shortline provides 30 minute shuttle rides for patrons of the Cordele Railfan Festival. Trains depart from the depot area in downtown Cordele and travel a few miles east on the Heart of Georgia line. After passing under Interstate 75, trains reverse and come back into town.

downtown Cordele overhead / Google Maps

Click to see Cordele, Georgia plotted on a Google Maps page

Festival

Article

Cordele Rail Fan Festival Coming in November

August 2018

CORDELE - The first ever Cordele Rail Fan Festival is set for Saturday, November 10, in downtown Cordele. It is obvious that Cordele is a city built by the railroad industry, and the organizers of the Rail Fan Fest are expecting quite a few railroad-watching fans to visit Cordele during the event.

“Cordele is here and was established because of the railroads. Rail fans love Cordele because of the trains. We see trains as an inconvenience because we have to go around them, but they love it,” said Cordele Main Street Director, Monica Mitchell. “So the building on the corner is being remodeled here for a railroad museum and half of it is going to be gallery space for the Arts Alliance. We have invested over there, and of course the Georgia Grown Trail runs on 41 and so we are trying to make the intersection of Ninth Ave and Wall St the core of our rail tourism.”

Mitchell and the rest of the event organizers hope to make the Rail Fan Festival an enjoyable event for any that might be interested.

“People get into this train watching,” said Mitchell. “We’ll have Frank Crowe, a well-known railroad artist, and we’ll have three model railroad clubs. We are going to have entertainment for the kids, we’ll close Ninth Avenue and have bouncy houses, games and other things for the kids to do. Then we are going to go down on Wall St where they just tore all the buildings down and we’re going to set up temporary pop-up tents, borrow some bleachers, and we are going to have arts and craft vendors on Wall St. and people can sit over there to watch the trains and take pictures,” she explained.

Cordele Dispatch