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A Visit to the Tennessee Central Railway Museum 10/10/2008

I had never been to the Tennessee Central Railway Museum in Nashville before and when the Monterey Super Fall Foliage Excursion was announced, I decided to order tickets for an exciting train trip.

On Wednesday morning, I arose to go to work but could not find my wallet. A quick search revealed nothing so I drove to the last place I had used it then went to work. I came home and soon more problems arose as I could not get a rental car without my driver's license and the one credit card I had that was not in my wallet was almost at its maximum. I went to the Credit Union and received a temporary bank card. That night I went to bed wondering how I was going to managep.

10/9/2008 I was up early with my plan being to arrive at the Santa Ana Department of Motor Vehicles at 7:00 AM so I could be at the front of the line. That worked and I had a temporary license by 8:09 AM. The Hertz rental car company was contacted but they would not accept it. I tried Thrifty and after three phone calls, had the same result. I then called Steve Grande and told him what had happened and within twenty minutes, he had the idea for me to take a taxi to the Airport Inn and he found the Drake Inn nine-tenths-of-a-mile from the Tennessee Central Railway Museum which I would be visiting on Friday and where my train would leave from on Saturday.

I would take a taxi to the Drake Inn Friday morning and then return to the airport via taxi Sunday morning. I called the Best Western Airport Inn and they had a complimentary shuttle service Steve reserved a room at the Drake Inn while I cancelled the other two nights at Best Westerns around Nashville. Carole Walker was called to cancel my car rental and I finished packing. Next the train tickets vanished, so I called the Tennessee Central Railway Museum who said they would have my ticket waiting at will call. What would happen next? I was still sober on Day 5,013 and finished packing just before Steve arrived to drive me to John Wayne Airport. Security took eight minutes then I waited two hours for my flight to board.

This flight was boarded in a hurry and the B737-700 airplane reversed from the gate at 12:42 PM and took off at 12:57 PM. I listened to the Gandy Dancers, a band that musician Kenny Marshall recorded with which includes "The Ballad of Chris Guenzler". I did some Sudoku puzzles before we landed in Houston at 5:35 PM CDT and I deplaned at 6:02 PM and had to find my next flight, which was in Terminal B and rode the shuttle train to get there. At 6:10 PM, I was in Terminal B and after some doughnuts, found my gate.

Gate 4 was opened at 6:50 PM and I walked out to Gate B48M to board my Embraer RJ145 airplane for Nashville, which took off at 7:37 PM while I read more of John Grisham's book "The Innocent Man". We landed at 9:05 PM and after all the baggage was unloaded, we were allowed to deplane. I called the hotel but they did not have a shuttle driver that evening so I had to find a taxi, which the hotel paid for, so I could check into the Best Western Airport Inn where I paid cash for the room. I checked the Internet before calling it a night.

The Tennessee Central Railway was founded in 1884 as the Nashville and Knoxville Railroad by Alexander S. Crawford. It was an attempt to open up a rail route from the coal and minerals of East Tennessee to the markets of the midstate, a service which many businessmen felt was not being adequately provided by the existing railroad companies. They also wanted to ship coal and iron ore to the Northeastern US over the Cincinnati Southern Railway, which was leased to the Southern and operated as the Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railway (CNOTP), through their Cincinnati gateway. The N&K was only completed between Lebanon, where it connected to a Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway branch from Nashville, and Standing Stone (now Monterey).

By the 1880s railroads were becoming a mature industry and it was not easy for a new competitor to break in. The firm and its successor companies would struggle for decades with both financial woes and hostility from the more established lines. (It was unable to use Nashville's ornate new Union Station terminal for instance, as that was controlled by the rival Louisville and Nashville Railroad and its subsidiary Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis.) The Tennessee Central linked Knoxville directly, by a link to the Southern Railway's subsidiary Harriman and Northeastern from Harriman to Knoxville, with Nashville via a route which ascended the Cumberland Plateau Escarpment at Walden's Ridge between Emory Gap and Crossville. The traditional major route for this passage had been made via Chattanooga.

In 1893, enter the likes of entrepreneur "Colonel" Jere Baxter. He was known as charismatic and regarded as ruthless. Although no money could be found in Tennessee to complete the property that was to be the Tennessee Central, he traveled to St. Louis and eventually found backing. For much of his construction financing, he issued bonds. He organized and constructed four lines that, together with the N&K acquired from the Crawford family, were to become the Tennessee Central. The lines were reorganized in 1902 and renamed the Tennessee Central Railroad. Several versions of this name were used over a period of some thirty years, until the final name, Tennessee Central Railway, was adopted in 1922.

The line expanded slowly and piecemeal to the west and north of Nashville during this period, falling into receivership twice, in 1897 and 1912, on the latter occasion operating in technical insolvency for ten years. Baxter died in 1904, leaving as his heritage the now completed TC, which was unfortunately heavily burdened with debt. Although the company was operating "in the black", they were unable to meet their bonded indebtedness, which was incurred from the building of the line. In 1905, the TC was leased for three years to the IC west of Nashville and the Southern east of Nashville. Due to unprofitable operations, neither line opted to renew their lease. In 1922, a group of investors led by Paul M. Davis bought the railroad at a bankruptcy sale, thus abolishing the bonded indebtedness. They hired former president Hugh Wright Stanley, who operated the line profitably (except during 1932 and 1933) until 1945. The first diesel-electric locomotive switcher was brought to Nashville in 1939 by the TC.

Wartime traffic in the early 1940s brightened the financial picture, but after that hard times returned. Despite losses in 1946, a group of investors led by J. L. Armstrong bought out the Davis group. The last of the steam engines were pulled from service in 1952 due to the arrival of four diesel locomotives (along with 200 coal hoppers) financed by a Reconstruction Finance Corporation loan in the amount of $2.2 million. 1954 saw the opening of the first unit of the Tennessee Valley Authority's Kingston coal-fired power generating plant, which was largely fed coal from TC's own on-line coal mines operators. The company dropped money-losing passenger service on July 31, 1955, also in that year, the TC ended operations of their steam locomotives. 1956 saw the TC purchase more diesel locomotives and coal hoppers with another RFC loan. Brief profitability was restored from 1949 through 1956. In 1957 the TVA began awarding contracts to non-TC coal mine operators and their traffic boom went bust. Although the program of right-of-way improvement and new equipment acquisition had been carried out, the firm at length was unable to repay the RFC loans and fell into its third and final receivership in 1968. Its assets were sold off. Much of the Nashville beltline south of Nashville had already been sold to the state to build I-440. The Western Division from the western end of the Interstate 440 right-of-way in Nashville to Hopkinsville, Kentucky was purchased by the Illinois Central Railroad. The eastern end of the line from Harriman to the siding just west of Crossville went to the Southern Railway. The remaining middle portion from Crossville to Nashville went to its old and not at all friendly rival, the Louisville & Nashville.

At the end of 1956, TC operated 286 miles of road and 377 miles of track; that year it reported 278 million net revenue ton-miles of freight and 1 million passenger-miles. The Tennessee Central endured for over 80 years in the face of very tough odds, and played a considerable part in the economic development of its service region. It is still remembered fondly by many people in the small towns it served as "The Route of Personal Service", and is commemorated by a namesake institution, the Tennessee Central Railway Museum, in its former master mechanic's shop, which also was its headquarters in its final years. An unmarked monument exists in today's Interstate 440 loop south of downtown Nashville, which sits on the old Tennessee Central right-of-way, purchased by the state in the railroad's last years.

The trackage between Monterey and Crossville was dismantled by the L&N in the 1980s, which has proven problematic to recent advocates of the restoration of passenger train service between Nashville and Knoxville. The Nashville and Eastern Railroad was formed to revive operation of the line's freight service to Old Hickory and Lebanon, approximately 30 miles east of Nashville, with occasional runs to points somewhat further east over the former L&N-owned TC trackage. The N&E once participated in the operation of the Broadway Dinner Train out of Nashville. Today it hosts the Music City Star commuter rail service between Nashville and Lebanon.

In 2000, the Nashville and Western Railroad was formed as subsidiary of the Nashville and Eastern to take over the operation of the old TC from Nashville to Ashland City, which was on the portion originally sold to the IC, but later operated by numerous short lines. The Cumberland River Bicentennial Trail extends approximately 14 miles west from Ashland City on the old TC roadbed. Eventually the Dept. of Defense took over the operation of the old TC from Hopkinsville to Fort Campbell. The rest of the TC line between the Trail's end and Fort Campbell has been abandoned.

At the eastern end, the former Tennessee Central remains in use between Crab Orchard, Tennessee and Rockwood, on the opposite side of Walden's Ridge, by Franklin Industrial Minerals for movement of aggregate products. At Rockwood, Franklin interchanges traffic with Norfolk Southern, which uses the ex-TC the rest of the way from Emory Gap to handle this business.

The Museum's collection is housed in the former Tennessee Central Railway Master Mechanic's office . I checked into their office and after a brief conversation, was taken across to the Museum for my tour around their interior collection of railroad history.

A model of Nashville Union Station.

A model of Tennessee Central 4-4-0 504 with US Mail combine 404 and coach 714.

A model of Louisville and Nashville A-3 0-4-0 99.

The Dixie Line train bulletin.

Display case housing marker lights.

Display case housing lanterns and Tennessee Central timetables.

Railroad pictures on the wall.

Adlake kerosene caboose lamp.

Marker lights and railroad signs.

Part of the "O" gauge model railroad that was once housed on an upper floor of Nashville Union Station.

Semaphore signal blade.

Display case of passenger railroad timetables.

The pictures above the display case.

Visitor register.

A Major Mission of the Tennessee Central Railway Museum.

Cast iron mileage marker of the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railroad.

Fire bucket of the Tennessee Central Railroad.

TCRY Edcoten, KY.

Models with an early signal system for streetcars.

Marker lights and a locomotive builder's plate.

Church and a coal loader models.

Model of the C&C office building.

Lanterns and more marker lights.

Tennessee Central diesel pictures.

Steam locomotive board.

Great American train songs.

Signal and a locomotive bell.

"Night Train to Memphis" movie poster.

C.T.R.N. (Central of Tennessee Railway and Navigation Company) Yard Limits sign.

Louisville and Nashville train dispatcher's control board.

Various Tennessee Central pictures.

Collection of railroad lanterns.

Headlight from Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis 342 and a Penn Bridge Company of Beaver Falls builder's plate.

Pictures of Tennessee Central diesels.

History of Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis 535 "Maria".

Map of the Tennessee Central and more pictures.

Pictures on the south wall.

The entire Tennessee Central Railway Museum's collection. I returned to the office and the lady next took me into the former baggage room which housed two model railroads.

The HO diorama.

Nashville N-Trak, the museum's N scale club which has permanent layout run by members but also builds modules and sets up at different events around middle Tennesse.

I went back to the office and was shown a program on one of the Museum's excursions which included a train robbery. It was similar to Huell Howser's "California's Gold" show, but in a Tennessee-style. Next I was taken out to see the museum's collection of equipment.