Since the 1920s, the
Georgia Railway and Power Company (now
Georgia Power, a part of
Southern Company), had been losing money on transit. It commissioned a study from
Beeler in 1926, but the suggestions were not enough to help. In the late-1940s most years saw double-digit percentage losses of ridership: from 125 million in 1946 down to 100 million in 1948 and finally 86 million in 1949. In April 1949, Georgia Power ran the last
streetcar on
Atlanta's original network, and in May of the next year its drivers
went on strike. During the five-week-long work stoppage, Georgia Power sought for a buyer for its increasingly troubled transit business. In response to this, Atlanta businessmen
Clement Evans,
Granger Hansell and
Inman Brandon, along with
Leland Anderson of
Columbus, Georgia, formed the ATC and purchased the transportation properties on June 23, 1950, just over a month into the strike. More than 1,300 employees signed on to the new company and ended their strike. Anderson became the president of the ATC, and in September 1950 a Georgia Power vice president,
Jackson Dick, joined to become the chairman of the board. The system consisted of the
trolleybus (trackless trolley) system as well as regular (diesel)
transit buses. The former was phased out in 1963, allowing the city to remove its
overhead wires. The city's
drivers and
mechanics were part of
Amalgamated Street Car Union Local 732. One of the company's promotional drives was called
Orchids for Operators, in which customers could nominate a helpful or courteous employee for that honor. In 1965, the newly formed MARTA began plans for a new
rapid transit system. By 1972, when planning was mostly finished,
Fulton and
DeKalb counties had signed on to the new rail system. As a result, MARTA purchased ATC for
US$13 million, making it the sole mass transit entity in the area. ==See also==