This service could very well belong on the regular pages: it connects two major cities, is over 150 miles long, and the schedule is no slouch. [An average speed of 45.6 MPH is respectable for a normal passenger train; for a mixed train, that's flying!] The reason it shows up here is because of its uniqueness: It was one of the few passenger services to survive the coming of Amtrak, and by more than a decade. If the discussion I heard on an internet forum is true, it would seem that the Georgia Railroad was offered tax incentives to maintain a passenger service between Augusta and Atlanta after Seaboard Coast Line pulled the plug on the Palmetto, and so maintain a passenger service they did.

NOTE (November 2014): The above was written when I was young and naïve enough to believe that adherence to a schedule still meant something in the early 1970s. Correspondent Cliff Dunn has corrected me of that notion. He writes: 

"I was looking over your timetable for the Georgia Railroad and wanted to make a note: The train retained a passenger service on paper, but a friend of mine rode that train in either the late 1970s or the early 1980s.  According to the conductor, the train sold about two tickets per month, the car didn't have air conditioning, and the timetable was more of a recommendation that was set up for the fastest plausible run so it wouldn't get stuck somewhere waiting for a passenger run.  Apparently, runs of 12 hours were not uncommon if the freight schedule was heavy.

"Also of note is that after A-Day, the Georgia Railroad didn't bother filing for fare increases...so in the early 80s this might have been the cheapest, but least reliable, way to get from Atlanta to Augusta."

The Georgia Railroad's mixed train service would survive the decade of the 1970s, but in the early '80s the line would be acquired by the expanding "Family Lines" system (SCL/L & N; now all part of CSX). The new corporate parent's bean counters took a look at this throwback and basically said, "Huh?" Tax advantages or no, the passenger service would not survive the transition into the new corporate structure.