The Georgia Railroad decided to extend the Madison branch to Terminus (Atlanta) and thereby compete with the Central Railroad and Banking Company of Georgia (later the Central of Georgia Railroad), which together with the Macon & Western Railroad, was competing for traffic through Charleston's rival port of Savannah, Georgia. By 1850, this railroad had built of track and was up to by 1860. At the time, goods from the Mississippi and Ohio valleys had to go by riverboat to New Orleans and then via coastal steamships around the Florida Keys, to get to the big population centers in the Northeast. Shipping cross-country by rail to the ports of Charleston and Savannah made perfect economic sense.