The AGS also owns about a 30% interest in the Canadian Pacific Kansas City-controlled Meridian-Shreveport Meridian Speedway.

[4] In January and February 1854, respectively, the Georgia and Tennessee legislatures authorized the company to continue its road to a point on the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad.

[13] A group of Boston capitalists headed by John C. Stanton gained control of the companies after the Civil War, and the legislature passed a law in November 1868 to merge the two as the Alabama and Chattanooga Railroad.

[14] However, due to nonpayment of interest on state bonds, the state of Alabama seized the property in mid-1871, and it was operated by other parties (including the president of the connecting New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad) until November 1877, when it was reorganized as the Alabama Great Southern Railroad by Emile Erlanger and Company.

[8][9] Erlanger set up an English corporation, Alabama Great Southern Railway Company, Limited, to own the stock of the AGS.

A second English corporation, Alabama, New Orleans, Texas and Pacific Junction Railways Company, Limited, was created in 1881 to increase the funds available to purchase associated lines.