For those of you who are interested, here are a few additional photographs from my collection that I got around to scanning and uploading. How many photographs do I have? I actually don't know. Definitely more than 200. I spent more than a decade collecting old photographs and artifacts related to the railroads of Chattanooga, Tennessee. My oldest pieces are confirmed to date to about 1845-iron rail sections from the Western and Atlantic Railroad.



This photograph was taken circa 1900 at Tunnel Hill, Georgia on the main line of the Western and Atlantic Railroad. At the time, the railroad was operated under lease by the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway. The railroad depot is the original Tunnel Hill depot, completed circa 1850. The tunnel, completed in 1850, was bypassed by a larger bore in 1929. Both the depot and the tunnel survive-the depot having been slightly modified for use as a commercial grain mill. The 1850 tunnel is now part of a walking trail.



This photograph shows the north end of the Car Shed at Chattanooga, Tennessee between 1857 and 1880. Originally, trains entered through the south end of the 100' by 324' shed (located just south of present day 9th and Broad Streets) and the locomotives stopped just outside the north end of the shed to avoid fouling the air inside the structure. In 1880, a modern terminal head house was constructed on the north end of the shed, sealing that end. The shed was extended about 1910 to a length of 424' and trimmed to a length of 115' in 1926 due to the extension of South Broad Street. The surviving section housed the famed Civil War Locomotive "General" for many years and was demolished in 1971.



This locomotive is ex-Central of Georgia Railroad No. 349. Built by Baldwin in 1891, she served the Central for many years before being sold off to a farmer in central Georgia. Why did he want an antique steam locomotive? He needed something for the grandkids to play on. Eventually the family decided that the locomotive had to go, so they called the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum and offered to give us the locomotive if we'd come and get it. What an amazing find! It's an intact American type locomotive (4-4-0) with virtually nothing missing. Builders plates, gauges and lamps were all still on the locomotive which had been stored under a large shed for decades.



Here we see Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum's ex-United States Army Transportation Corps Class A Consolidation (2-8-0) heading a passenger train east over the South Chickamauga Creek bridge. The current bridge was built in 1912 to replace a 1850s vintage stone arch bridge. I took the photo one day when I wasn't assigned to train service.



Here we see Pacific (4-6-2) No. 535 of the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway at Craven's Yard-Chattanooga, Tennessee. Built around 1912, the 535 was christened "Marie" by the railway and carried the name and a portrait of her namesake up until the late 1920s. In 1947, the locomotive was streamlined and put in service on the City of Memphis-a Nashville to Memphis, Tennessee streamliner. Note the flared smokestack-the NC&StL's steam locomotive from the 1880s up to the end of steam were almost all outfitted with this stack, the crown of which was always painted red.



Here we see the 535 streamlined. She only ran a few years as a streamliner due to her age. She was replaced by another streamlined Pacific and scrapped.



This 110' turntable is located in Summerville, Georgia at Dowdy Park. The turntable was removed from the CSX Boyle's Yard at Birmingham, Alabama and shipped to Summerville where it was reinstalled and restored at the city's expense. The TVRM needed to have a facility to turn locomotives at Summerville, if they were to operate excursion trains that far south on the old Central of Georgia line. Since there was very limited space, a turntable was the only option. Installation was completed in the late 1990s and was the first time that a turntable had been put in service in the State of Georgia in over fifty years!

Thank you, Alan, I loved to see these pictures. Seeing slivers of human history that has come and gone tends to move me, plus I find old steam locomotives highly intriguing.

Have to tip my proverbial hat to the farmer and his grandchildren for keeping that one loco so intact, I fear me and my brother would have been less kind to it had it been our grandfather... I wonder how he managed to transport it to his farm?

I've been thinking of picking up my digital camera and going out to see if I could take any good photos of the remains of the industrial rail network here in Lahti city, sadly in many cases any remains have been fairly thoroughly eradicated and buried under new construction.

I'll have to drag out some or Queensland Rail in the steam era.

I'll have to drag out some photos of Queensland Rail in the steam era.

All right folks, here are two photographs that were real mysteries to me when I first got them. The first photograph is one that I bought from a friend who had owned and operated a camera store since before the World War II. He also collected a wide variety of photographs and prints and sold them for a few dollars each. All he knew about the first photograph was that it was a "local" wreck.

With no real substantial clues or any accident reports to track it down through-Interstate Commerce Commission accident reports only go back as far as 1911-placed me at a significant disadvantage. However, the library at my university had an excellent reference department with more than fifteen major newspapers on microfilm. Most of the papers had daily copies from 1880 onward, so there was a lot of material to go through. It took me a few years to find out about this wreck, but when I did find it, the story was improbable but true!



The accident occurred on the afternoon of May 16, 1907. As Southern Railway's Train No. 15-a freight hauled by locomotive No. 306 started across the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway's Chattanooga Creek Bridge, a massive explosion was heard in the distance. That explosion occurred at the construction site for Southern Railway's Lookout Mountain Tunnel-about half a mile from the bridge. The blast was so severe that it hurled debris up to a mile away. One large rock was seen to hit the tension rods of the Chattanooga Creek Bridge, carrying them away and causing the bridge to collapse, dragging the locomotive backwards until it hung up on the bridge. The engineman and fireman jumped off on their respective sides-the engineman was moderatley injured but the fireman was crushed by falling debris. Two men working the pile driver in the distance were killed by flying debris that penetrated the machine's cab. They had been in the process of driving piles for another bridge.

Realizing what had happened, the damaged pile driver was immediately sent to the shops. The men removed the dead men, removed the damaged cab and put the pile driver back in service as the new bridge would be immediately required. The Southern Railway wreck train was dispatched immediately to the scene but the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis wreck train did not arrive until at least four hours had passed. Their train was working a minor derailment at Whiteside, Tennessee and the transmission of the orders to return to Chattanooga were delayed due disruption of the wire service.



This photograph is one of three that I have of three that show the wreck of Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Train No. Extra 179-an excursion train chartered by the Knights of Pythias. At a point near Dalton, Georgia the train derailed, killing one passenger and one railroad employee-a track inspector waiting for the train to pass.

Here are a few more photographs that I've scanned and uploaded for those who are interested.


This photograph shows Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum's two operational GP-7L locomotives standing outside the Robert M. Soule Shops. The photograph was taken shortly after the locomotives were outshopped and that is fresh DuPont Imron paint. Not cheap-cost about $10,000 USD per locomotive then.


This photograph shows the west portal of Whiteside Tunnel during replacement of the sub grade roadbed back about 2002. The tunnel is 979 feet long and was completed in 1859, not 1858 as indicated by the date stone. In fact, the excessive cost of constructing the tunnel drove the original railroad bankrupt and it was completed by the East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad. Historical photographs of the tunnel show that it did not have a date stone.


This shows TVRM 4501 approaching Chickamauga Creek Bridge westbound, having just made the station stop at Grand Junction (Jersey). The 4501 is a Ms Class 2-8-2 built in 1911 by Baldwin Locomotive Works. The 4501 was withdrawn from service in 1997 and has not steamed for more than a decade now.


Here we see TVRM No. 610 arriving at Grand Junction (Jersey) with the local train from East Chattanooga. The train will turn on the wye before making the station stop. The depot building is located on the inside of the wye and is based on the train station at Tuscumbia, Alabama. Waiting room, station agent's office, gift shop and depot restaurant are on the ground floor. The second floor features a meeting hall with AV equipment and the railroad commissary. The commissary supplies the depot restaurant, commissary car and dining car services and has a full commercial kitchen in addition to several coolers and freezers for food storage.


This crew portrait was taken on Easter Sunday, 1996. The railroad stops for nothing, even religious holidays. The crew from left to right are: Alan Walker (me), Conductor; Shane Rominger, Trainman; C. David Pugh, Engineer; Joshua Turner, Brakeman; and L. E. Hunziker, Fireman. We rarely took a moment to pause and record the human side of railroading, and I am glad that I had a co-worker take that photograph.  

--Last edited by Alan Walker on 2008-06-13 00:28:50 --