The AB&C was controlled by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, which owned a majority of the stock.

The AB&C operated daily freight and passenger trains between its northern endpoints, Atlanta and Birmingham, and its southern ones, Brunswick, Waycross, and Thomasville.

[1] Other southbound trains left Birmingham from the AB&C's own Eleventh Street station there.

[2] The two northern branches joined at Manchester to form a single main line to the port city of Brunswick, on the Atlantic coast.

A branch from the main line at Fitzgerald ran 80 miles southwesterly to Thomasville, while another branch carried trains to Waycross for connection with the Atlantic Coast Line to the Florida railroad hub of Jacksonville, 75 miles away.