Editing Seaboard Air Line Railroad (section)

===Civil War and Reconstruction===

The American Civil War devastated railroads, particularly in former Confederate territories including Virginia and North Carolina. After the war, [[Moncure Robinson]] and [[Alexander Boyd Andrews]] organized the Seaboard Inland Air Line to connect Georgia and South Carolina to [[Portsmouth, Virginia]] (in the Hampton Roads area across from [[Norfolk, Virginia]]).<ref>Richard White, The Republic for which It Stands: The United States during Reconstruction and the Gilded Age 1865–1896 (Oxford University Press 2017) pp. 225–226</ref> They worked with Confederate general turned Republican political boss [[William Mahone]] to work against the conglomeration of railroads reorganized by Thomas A. Scott, who had moved up the ranks of the Pennsylvania Railroad, took control of the [[Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad (1868–1878)|Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad]] after the Civil War, and tried to work with African American legislators to acquire (and rebuild) railroads further South. As it had before the Civil War, Virginia paid millions to get railroads rebuilt and commerce moving through its cities. Charges of corruption against Scott, and resentment against northern and black workers led to volatile situations in many areas. Eruptions of [[Ku Klux Klan]] violence centered on railroads through interior North and South Carolina.<ref>White p. 226</ref>
Together the R&G, P&R, and R&AA-L formed the backbone of the future Seaboard Air Line. Moncure Robinson's son John M. Robinson acquired financial control of the trio in 1875. As a marketing tactic they were collectively known as the "Seaboard Air-Line System." The name initially had no legal authority, although that changed as Robinson continued to extend southward. The first known official use of "Seaboard Air Line" appeared when the system was pushing towards Atlanta. It had already acquired the Georgia, Carolina & Northern Railway which intended to reach that city from Monroe, North Carolina. Construction began in 1887 and was completed as far as Inman Park, east of Atlanta, by 1892.  However, an ordinance prevented it from reaching the city directly. To circumvent this issue the Seaboard Air Line Belt Railroad (SALB) was chartered in 1892 to build an 8-mile branch and a connection with the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis at Howells. From there the SALB utilized trackage rights over the Dixie Line to reach the downtown area. Just prior to this event Robinson would link Rutherfordton and Wilmington, North Carolina via Charlotte and Hamlet by acquiring the Carolina Central Railroad in 1883. Rail service between these cities opened in 1887.

====The ''air line'' name====
{{Further|Air-line railroad}}
[[Image:Seaboard straight as a plumb line ad.jpg|thumb|300px|right|"Straight as a [[plumb line]]": Seaboard Air Line Railway advertisement illustrating the "quickest train service via the shortest route" to Florida, 1902.]]

In the days before air travel, ''air line'' was a common term for the shortest distance between two points: a straight line drawn through the air (or on a map), ignoring natural obstacles (i.e., "[[as the crow flies]]"). Hence, a number of 19th-century railroads used ''air line'' in their titles to suggest that their routes were shorter than those of competing roads:  see list at [[Air-line railroad]].

The Seaboard never owned an airplane. In 1940 the railroad proposed the creation of "Seaboard Airlines," but this idea was struck down by the [[Interstate Commerce Commission]] as violating federal [[United States antitrust law|anti-trust legislation]].{{citation needed|date = December 2015}}

During a spate of interest in aviation shares on [[Wall Street]] following [[Charles A. Lindbergh]]'s trans-Atlantic flight in 1927, Seaboard Air Line shares actually attracted some investor curiosity because of the name's aviation-related connotations; only after noticing that Seaboard Air Line was actually a railroad did investors lose interest.<ref name='Ross 1968'>{{cite book | last = Ross | first = Walter S. | title = The Last Hero: Charles A. Lindbergh | publisher = Harper & Row | year = 1968 | location = New York | pages = 170–171 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=qwKOfZPn9IYC&q=%22seaboard+air+line%22+stock+lindbergh&pg=PA171 | isbn = 9781419138119}}</ref>