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Twenty-six miles of river running to a town cut in half by a state line, in an open-sided coach with the windows down.
Photo: Thomson200CC0
The railway is the reason Blue Ridge has a downtown worth walking. Trains have left this site since the Marietta and North Georgia Railroad arrived in 1886 and laid the town out around its own depot, and excursion trains have run since 1998 under the Georgia Northeastern Railroad, which still hauls freight over the same rails on days the passenger cars are parked. That is an unusual arrangement for a heritage line. It also means the track is maintained as working railroad rather than as a museum piece.
The route runs north out of town and picks up the Toccoa River, then stays with it for most of the way. Twenty-six miles round trip, riding the inside of the valley with the water below you on the left going out and on the right coming back. There is no summit, no tunnel and no spectacular trestle. What there is instead is close, quiet river: shoals, sycamores leaning over the bank, fishermen who wave, and about a dozen private footbridges strung across to cabins that have no road access on the far side.
The far end is the part people remember. The line stops at McCaysville, Georgia, which shares a single downtown with Copperhill, Tennessee, and the boundary between the two states is painted on the pavement. People queue to be photographed with a foot in each. On the extended trip you get roughly two hours off the train there, which is enough for the line, an ice cream, a look at the Toccoa going over the low dam, and the odd realisation that the same river is called the Ocoee once it crosses.
Two things to settle before you book. First, trip length: the express turns straight around, the extended gives you the layover. Second, coach type. The open-air cars have benches facing outward through unglazed windows, which is the better ride in October and a cold one in December. The enclosed coaches are climate controlled with seats in fours. Autumn Saturdays sell out well in advance, and the railway is candid that trains reach capacity.
The depot sits at the bottom of the downtown grid, one block below East Main Street, so anywhere you park for the shops is already within a two-minute walk. From GA-515 take the Blue Ridge exits and follow signs for the historic district rather than trying to navigate to Depot Street directly; the last quarter mile is a one-way loop that makes sense only once you are in it.
Free street parking surrounds the depot and is gone early on an autumn Saturday. The railway operates a paid lot at 204 West Main Street with a lower midweek rate and a higher Thursday-to-Sunday rate; the ticket office posts the current figures.
From a cabin in the Aska area allow 20 to 30 minutes, more on a gravel road after rain. From Ellijay it is around 25 minutes north on GA-515, and from Atlanta a little over two hours if nothing is happening on I-575.
Two decisions, and they are independent of each other.
Trip length. The express runs the route and comes back without leaving the train. It suits small children whose patience is finite, and anyone slotting the railway into a day that also has an orchard in it. The extended trip adds a layover of about two hours at McCaysville and Copperhill, which is the version most people mean when they say they did the train. If you are only riding once, ride the long one.
Coach. Open-air coaches have bench seating that faces outward through open window openings, so the river is genuinely in front of you rather than behind glass, and so is the weather. In mid-October that is the whole point. In February it is a decision you will have opinions about by mile six. Enclosed coaches are climate controlled with seats grouped in fours around a table, which is easier with a family and much easier with a toddler.
A practical note that saves arguments: the river is not on the same side the whole way, and the train reverses direction for the return, so neither side of the coach is the permanent winner. Pick comfort over which window you think will be best.
Fares change by season and coach class, so book through the railway rather than relying on any figure quoted elsewhere.
The operating calendar is not year-round and it is not stable. Excursions have historically run from late March into December on a Friday-to-Monday pattern, widening to near-daily in high summer and through the autumn, with a separate run of Christmas trains and a reduced winter schedule after that. The railway publishes the live calendar and changes it; treat any schedule you read anywhere else, including here, as out of date.
October is the pressure point. Leaf season in Fannin County collides with the single highest-capacity attraction in the county, and the Saturday trains in the back half of the month are the first thing to go. If a cabin weekend in late October is the plan, book the train before you book dinner anywhere.
Two related consequences. Depot Street and the streets around it fill on those mornings, so give yourself thirty minutes more than the drive suggests. And the layover towns are absorbing the same crowd you are, at the same hour, from the same train, which is why the ice cream queue in McCaysville is twenty minutes long at 1pm in October and empty at 1pm in May.
Trains run in rain. The railway cancels for genuinely unsafe conditions and offers a refund or a reschedule pass when it does.
This is not a purpose-built tourist railway. It is a surviving fragment of the Marietta and North Georgia, a nineteenth-century attempt to push a line from the Georgia Piedmont through the mountains towards Knoxville and the copper traffic beyond. The company laid out Blue Ridge in 1886 at the point the rails reached, and the town was incorporated the following year by the colonel who built the railroad. The county seat moved here from Morganton in 1895 because this is where the trains stopped.
Freight kept the alignment alive long after passenger service ended, and it is freight that keeps it alive now. Georgia Northeastern operates the corridor commercially and runs the excursion as a subsidiary. On a weekday you may see a short freight consist in the yard, and the ballast, ties and rail you are rolling over are maintained to move loads rather than to look old.
The consequence for a passenger is a smooth, unhurried ride at a speed that is closer to a bicycle than a train. Nothing about it is dramatic. It is a river, at walking pace, for an hour, which turns out to be an extremely good way to see a valley that is otherwise all private driveways and no public bank.
Straight-line distances, so allow more on the road — the island is long and has one main parkway.
The oldest working thing in Blue Ridge: a Register-listed railway building still selling tickets to a train that still runs.
15–45 minutesFree to visit the building, platform side and yard. Train tickets are separate.0 ft away
Photograph: Unknown author
Four blocks of shopfronts facing a working railway depot, small enough to walk twice and busy enough to need a parking plan in October.
1–4 hoursFree. Street parking is free and scarce on peak weekends.300 ft away
Photograph: Thomson M
A Georgia town of about 1,150 people that shares its high street, its river and its bridge with a different state.
1–3 hoursFree. Walking to the state line and the river costs nothing.8.7 mi away
Photograph: Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided
The Tennessee half of the twin towns, and the edge of a copper basin that was stripped to bare red clay and then replanted.
1–2 hoursFree. Walking the town, the bridge and the river bank costs nothing.8.9 mi away
Photograph: Thomson20192
Where this place fits into a day, and the pages that plan one.
Almost nobody comes to Blue Ridge and stays in a hotel. They rent a cabin, usually for two or three nights, usually up a slope somewhere off a…
Photograph: Unsplash
Fannin County does not have many attractions in the sense a city has attractions. It has one excursion railway, one very large apple farm, one…
Photograph: Unsplash
Blue Ridge is here because a railway got here first. The Marietta and North Georgia pushed its line this far up the mountains in 1886, the town was…
Photograph: Unsplash
Autumn is the reason Fannin County has a visitor economy of the size it has. It is also the season most often mistimed, because people book it…
Photograph: Unsplash
Here is the thing nobody puts in a family travel article about this county, and it is the most useful sentence on the page: for children under about…
Photograph: Unsplash
Colour here is a function of height, not of the calendar. The county spans about 2,300 feet of elevation and the change comes downhill over roughly three weeks.
7 min readWyatt Ledford
Photograph: Unsplash
A family orchard since 1943, over forty apple varieties, and the busiest car park in Fannin County by lunchtime in October. What is ripe when, and when to turn up.
6 min readNadine Colquitt
Photograph: Unsplash
The train is perfect at four and hard work at two. The orchard is a triumph at nine in the morning and a disaster at one. A family guide organised by age rather than by attraction.
6 min readNadine Colquitt
Photograph: Unsplash
The round trip covers 26 miles and is sold in two lengths. The express runs out and straight back in about two hours without leaving the train. The extended trip adds a layover of roughly two hours in McCaysville and Copperhill and comes to about four hours door to door. If you are riding once, the extended version is the one worth the time, because the twin towns and the painted state line are half the reason people take the train.
North from the depot in Blue Ridge along the Toccoa River to McCaysville, Georgia, which shares a downtown with Copperhill, Tennessee. The state boundary runs through the middle of that downtown and is marked on the pavement, so the standard photograph is one foot in each state. The same river continues past the towns under a different name: it is the Toccoa in Georgia and becomes the Ocoee at the Tennessee line.
Open-air coaches have bench seats facing outward through unglazed window openings, so you get the river, the air and the sound of the train without glass in the way. That is the better ride from April to early November. Enclosed coaches are climate controlled with seats grouped in fours around a table, which is easier with young children, easier in a cold snap and the sensible choice for the Christmas trains.
For an October weekend, yes, and several weeks ahead. Leaf season is the busiest period in Fannin County by a wide margin and the railway says openly that trains sell out. Midweek trips outside autumn are far easier and can often be booked the same week. The ticket office at the depot is published as open daily from morning to late afternoon, but turning up on spec in peak season is how people end up not riding.
No. The railway permits certified service animals only, and they must be harnessed or leashed and stay on the floor rather than on a seat. Pets, including well-behaved ones and small ones in carriers, are not allowed on board. That is worth knowing in a county where a large share of the cabin stock is advertised as dog-friendly and most visitors arrive with the dog in the car.
