The Great Smoky Mountains Railroad, Through The Heart Of Western North Carolina

The Great Smoky Mountains Railroad has its beginnings dating back to 1988 after the Norfolk Southern had abandoned a branch line running between Andrews and Murphy, North Carolina originally part of predecessor Southern Railway's Murphy Branch (the line was initially built in 1880 as the Western North Carolina Railroad until it became part of the Southern's system). A further history of the line can be found below courtesy of the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad:

The Murphy Branch experienced its heaviest business in the early 1940s when the massive Fontana Dam was constructed during World War II. Thousands of carloads of cement, equipment, and other materials reached the construction site by rail on a spur line built from Bushnell to Fontana. Huge shipments of copper ore from mines in the western end of North Carolina and Copperhill, Tennessee, increased the line's tonnage. In the 1920s, ribbons of concrete crawled through the mountains, linking towns together.

Passenger traffic on the Murphy Branch, then owned by the sprawling Southern Railway System, began to decline as a result of the introduction of automobile and bus travel. Southern discontinued all passenger traffic on the Murphy Branch on July 16th, 1948, ending 64 years of service that opened Western North Carolina to the outside world. When freight traffic dropped off by 1985, Norfolk Southern closed the Andrews to Murphy leg of the Murphy Branch and the State of North Carolina purchased the Dillsboro to Murphy tracks to keep them from being destroyed.

In 1999 the GSMR saw perhaps its biggest change to date when it was purchased by American Heritage Railways and renamed from Great Smoky Mountains Railway to Great Smoky Mountains Railroad. While the railroad's standard excursion takes you through the Nantahala Gorge and lasts nearly five hours it also has other trips operating throughout the year including "A Day Out With Thomas," "The Little Engine That Could," the "Pumpkin Patch," the "Easter Beagle," and the "Polar Express". For more information about these trains and riding the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad please click here to visit their website.

For power railroad typically employs one of four GP9s (#711, #777, #1751 and #1755) along with its star attraction 2-8-0 Consolidation #1702. Also slated to join the roster is another steamer, #722.

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