Newspaper Page Text
SAVE MURMUR TRESTLE PT. 1
Get to Climax often? The town is so named because it's
the highest point on the railroad between Savannah and the
Chattahoochee River, all the way across flat, extreme south
Georgia, though the change in elevation is significant only to
an engineer. Railroads hate hills and do everything they can
to level them out, because trains are hauling great weight,
and they don't want gravity adding to the fuel costs. Railroads
aren't what they used to be, and by the turn of the last century
a lot of tracks had been abandoned all over the country. There
they sat: miles and miles of level paths, crossing rivers and
gorges, tunneling through mountains, bypassing traffic-choked
roads, connecting towns and driving into the hearts of cities.
Naturally, it didn't take long to realize what a bonanza these
roadbeds were for cyclists, walkers, skaters and baby-carriage-
pushers: an effortless, safe alternative to the mean streets.
Many of the old road beds have been converted to rail-trail
routes like the popular Silver Comet Trail that runs west of
Atlanta over into Alabama and beyond.
You can see a potential rail-trail in microcosm by what's
left of the Georgia Railroad spur line that ran the 39 miles
from Union Point through Winterville to Athens. Where the line
comes into town, it's a level shot from the next phase of the
park-and-ride lot at the bypass all the way to the multimodal
center, and it took tall wood trestles to keep it on grade across
streets and Trail Creek and a bridge to carry it across the North
Oconee River. When the successor to the Georgia Railroad, CSX,
abandoned the line, they offered it for sale to Athens-Clarke
County, including the bridge and trestles. The county wasn't
interested, so CSX began dismantling their line. When they
started ripping down the Trail Creek trestle, everybody sud
denly woke up to the fact that, hey, that's the Murmur Trestle,
the one made famous on the back cover of the R.E.M. album of
the same name. An outcry poured in from all over the world,
from the same people who make pilgrimages to Athens to see
the trestle and the steeple and other artifacts of R.E.M.'s long
reign atop pop. The county ponied up $25,000 for the trestle,
and CSX called off the bulldozers. The truncated trestle has sat
there for 12 years since, neglected and slowly decaying while
the city has shown a marked lack of enthusiasm for the whole
rail-trail idea, in spite of the influx of $11 million from federal
funding and from two SPLOST referendums where citizens voted
for using sales tax dollars to build the trail.
The plan now is to let the trestle rot and route the trail
down off its level track over there behind Mama's Boy, bring
it downhill (and uphill), crossing Poplar Street and Trail Creek
down in the bottom and then climb back up through Dudley
Park until you finally get back up to the trail level, where you
can admire photographs of the former trestle???the very antith
esis of using a level road bed for a trail.
But there's hope. Don't miss the next exciting Pub Notes
installment on the Murmur Trestle.
Pete McCommons editor@flagpole.com
EDITOR & PUBLISHER Pete McCommons
ADVERTISING DIRECTOR & PUBLISHER Alicia Nickles
PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Larry Tenner
MANAGING EDITOR Christina Cotter
ADVERTISING SALES Anita Aubrey, Melinda Edwards, Jessica Pritchard Mangum
MUSIC EDITOR Gabe Vodicka
CITY EDITOR Blake Aued
CLASSIFIEDS, DISTRIBUTION & OFFICE MANAGER Jessica Smith
ASSISTANT OFFICE MANAGER Sydney Slotkin
AD DESIGNERS Kelly Hart, Cindy Jerrell
CARTOONISTS Lee Gatlin, Missy Kulik, David Mack, Jeremy Long, Clint McElroy
ADOPT ME Special Agent Cindy Jerrell
CONTRIBUTORS Rachel Bailey, C. J. Bartenuk, Hillary Brown, Tom Crawford, Chris Hassiotis,
Derek Hill, Patterson Hood, Jyl Inov, Gordon Lamb, T. Ballard Lesemann, Kristen Morales,
Stella Smith, Drew Wheeler
CIRCULATION Charles Greenleaf, Will Donaldson, Matt Shirley, Emily Armond, Jessica Smith
WEB DESIGNER Kelly Hart
CALENDAR Jessica Smith
ADVERTISING INTERNS Charlotte Hawkins, CD Skehan
MUSIC INTERN Will Guerin
COVER IMAGE of a screenshot from Metacell, a Project for Robots
video game (see story on p. 9)
STREET ADDRESS: 112 Foundry St., Athens, GA 30601
MAILING ADDRESS: P.O. Box 1027, Athens, GA 30603
EDITORIAL: (706) 549-9 5 23 ??? ADVERTISING: (706) 549-03 01 FAX: (706) 548-8981
ADVERTISING: ads@flagpole.com
CALENDAR: calendar@flagpole.com
COMICS: comics@flagpole.com
EDITORIAL: editor@flagpole.com
LETTERS: letters@flagpole.com
MUSIC: music@flagpole.com
NEWS: news@flagpole.com
WEBSITE: web@flagpole.com
Flagpole, Inc. publishes Flagpole Magazine weekly and distributes 14,500 copies free at over
275 locations around Athens, Georgia. Subscriptions cost $70 a year, $40 for six months.
?? 2013 Flagpole, Inc. All rights reserved.
VOLUME 27
ISSUE NUMBER 4
O) ?? ??
CIRCULATION
1582 $??? LUMPKIN ST* ??? 706-208-0000
NOW SERVING
BREAKFAST
MONDAY-SATURDAY 6AM-10AM
AT OUR LUMPKIN ST. LOCATION
JAMAICAN BREAKFAST COMING SOON
(SATURDAY ONLY)
VISIT OUR NEW LOCATION FOR LUNCH * DINNER
145 EPPS BRIDGE RD. ??? 706-169-5199
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAi
$10 1-TOPPING PIZZAS
AND $7 PITCHERS OF MILLER LITE
&COORS LIGHT ALL DAY
1/2 OFF APPETIZERS WITH PURCHASE
OF AN ENTREE AND $1 OFF GLASSES
OF WINE STARTING AT 4PM
60< WINGS AND $1 OFF PITCHERS
$1 OFF ALL DRAFT PINTS
STARTING AT 3:00
UNIVERSAL SIGH - NO COVER!
GET ANY XL PIZZA
FOR THE PRICE OF A LARGE
$3 BLOODY MARYS AND MIMOSAS
TRIVIA STARTS AT 9:00
VOTE AMICI!
For Athens* Favorite Pizza and Wings
at Flagpole<com
HAPPY HOUR MONDAY-FRIDAY
$2 DOMESTIC PINTS & $3 WELLS
BEER OF THE MONTH: Sfl
BELL???S TWO HEARTED ALE jggg
JANUARY 30, 2013 ??? FLAGPOLE.COM 3