The mission of the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum (TVRM) is to collect for preservation, operation, interpretation, and display railroad artifacts in an authentic setting to educate the public concerning the role of railroads in the history and development of our region.
Chattanooga welcomed its first rail line with the arrival of the Western and Atlantic Railroad in 1850. A few years later, in 1858, the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railroad also arrived in Chattanooga. The city quickly became a railroad hub with industries springing up in the area to take advantage of the new transportation corridors.
During the Civil War, confederate and union leaders recognized Chattanooga’s strategic advantage because of its railroads, and in subsequent decades, the city’s railroad reputation gave rise to the iconic song “Chattanooga Choo Choo.”
By the late 1950s, railroads were waning as interstates and airlines made travel faster and more personal. With automobiles, Americans could choose their own schedule and stop as little or much as they wished. Passenger operations all but ended in the 1960s and freight operations suffered as big trucks hauled much of the freight across the country.
During this period, railroad museums formed to save some of the histories of this most iconic mode of American transportation.
In Chattanooga, as steam made its last appearances on the country’s major railroads, a few railroad fans began buying steam engines and passenger cars that the railroads would otherwise have scrapped. This small collection was the beginning of the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum, which was founded by a small group of local residents in 1961 who were intent on trying to save some American history by preserving, restoring, and operating authentic railway equipment from the "Golden Age of Railroading."
Railroads like the Southern Railway also made generous donations of obsolete rail cars to museums like TVRM, expanding their collections and the story the museum could tell. In addition, Southern Railway donated the original East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia roadbed (absorbed into the Southern Railway System in 1894) on which TVRM could operate.
TVRM’s passenger trains run on the historic route which includes Missionary Ridge Tunnel, completed in 1858 and on the National Register of Historic Places. The tunnel is the primary reason TVRM runs on the three-mile section of the former Southern Railway. As railroad equipment grew too large to pass through and the single-track tunnel became a traffic jam for an other wise double-track railroad, Southern Railway abandoned the three-mile portion of the line and built a new section around the end of Missionary Ridge, avoiding the tunnel altogether.
Today, TVRM preserves railroad equipment not only to preserve machines but to preserve an experience as well. In providing this historical experience, TVRM hopes to educate our visitors about the importance of this industry and how it helped create the modern world in which we live.
The American Locomotive Company, also known as ALCO, built the 630 for the Southern Railway in 1904. The wheel arrangement of this engine is a 2-8-0, known as a Consolidation. 630 spent many years in service out of Asheville, North Carolina serving on the Murphy and Lake Toxaway Branches until sold to the East Tennessee & Western North Carolina Railroad in 1952. The engine came to TVRM in 1978 and operated until 1989 when removed from service, being in need of a major overhaul. The engine was restored over a period of ten years, at a cost of almost $700,000. This restoration was completed in 2011 and has been called one of the most extensive overhauls on a steam locomotive since the end of the steam era.
Built by Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1911 for the Southern Railway, the 4501 was the first of its class on that railroad. The wheel arrangement is a 2-8-2, known as a Mikado, which is Japanese for "Emperor" since the first of this type were sold to Japan. 4501 served the Southern until 1948 when the railroad sold the locomotive to the Kentucky & Tennessee Railway and renumbered it to 12. When the small Kentucky railroad put the 4501 up for sale for scrap value in the early 1960s, TVRM’s first president, Paul Merriman, purchased the locomotive, brought it to Chattanooga and returned it to service. Since the mid-1960s, 4501 has pulled countless passenger excursion trains across the Southern (later Norfolk Southern) Railway. The 4501 ended its service in 1999 due to rising maintenance costs but was selected for service in the "21st Century Steam" program, being restored to service between 2011 and 2014. The 4501 is the sole survivor of 435 Mikado locomotives on the Southern Railway.
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