Tennessee Railroad Museums (2026): A Complete Guide

Published: October 12, 2026

Tennessee’s railroad museums run from a working Southern Railway shop in Chattanooga to a depot the town of Cowan rolled across the main line in 1976. The Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum keeps its own line through the Missionary Ridge Tunnel and is known for Southern 2-8-2 No. 4501. In Nashville, the Tennessee Central Railway Museum sends its own passenger cars out on a host railroad from the old master mechanic’s office. Jackson has Casey Jones’s house. Cookeville, Cowan, and Townsend keep the depots and the logging Shay.

Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia GP38 80 at the TVRM

The Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum is one of the state's great such venues, preserving its rail history through excursions and exhibits. Seen here is restored and operational Tennessee, Alabama & Georgia GP38 #80 which leads excursions. TVRM photo.

Ride days, the Chattanooga dinner train, and the Knoxville Christmas trips are on the Tennessee scenic-train guide. Dinner dates are on the Tennessee dinner-train guide. American-Rails does not sell tickets. Confirm the doors, and which locomotive is on the property, before you drive.

On this page: At a glance · Tennessee railroads · Chattanooga · Nashville · Jackson · Cookeville · Cowan · Townsend · Related reading

At a glance

Place	Town	What it is known for	Site
Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum	Chattanooga	Founded 1961. Former East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia line through the Missionary Ridge Tunnel of 1858. Southern 2-8-2 No. 4501, Baldwin, 1911	profile · 4119 Cromwell Road · rides
Tennessee Central Railway Museum	Nashville	Excursions since 1989 from the Tennessee Central master mechanic’s office, 220 Willow Street. Host railroad east of Nashville	tcry.org · rides
Casey Jones Home & Railroad Museum	Jackson	House opened as a museum in 1956. April 30, 1900, wreck at Vaughan, Mississippi. A locomotive lettered Illinois Central 382	caseyjones.com
Cookeville Depot Museum	Cookeville	Tennessee Central depot of 1909, at 116 West Broad Street. City purchase, 1975. Baldwin 4-6-0 No. 509, built 1913 for the Louisiana & Arkansas, lettered Tennessee Central since 2002	cookevilledepot.com
Cowan Railroad Museum	Cowan	NC&StL depot of 1904, moved September 21, 1976. Porter 2-4-2 of 1920. Museum incorporated 1979	cowanrailroadmuseum.org
Little River Railroad and Lumber Company Museum	Townsend	Founded 1982. Lima Shay No. 2147, April 14, 1909, back in town Thanksgiving weekend 1982. Walland depot	littleriverrailroad.org

Tennessee railroads

The General Assembly chartered the Nashville & Chattanooga on December 11, 1845. The original 152 miles opened in February 1854, and in 1873 the company became the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis. The Louisville & Nashville took stock control in January 1880 and absorbed the NC&StL in 1957. The Western & Atlantic had already reached Chattanooga in 1850. The Southern, the Illinois Central, the Gulf, Mobile & Ohio, the Clinchfield, and the Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific all used the state. The Tennessee Central ran from Harriman to Hopkinsville, Kentucky, until September 1, 1968. A fuller account is on the Tennessee railroads page.

Three rides sit beside the museums. Inside Dollywood at Pigeon Forge, the Dollywood Express is a 3-foot-gauge railroad whose locomotives came from the White Pass & Yukon, and a park ticket is required. Knoxville’s Three Rivers Rambler leaves University Commons. Its 2026 public calendar is the Christmas Lantern Express, on the Tennessee Christmas-train page, and the scenic guide has the locomotive assignment. The Lookout Mountain Incline has carried passengers up from St. Elmo since 1895. It is a funicular. Southern’s Terminal Station in downtown Chattanooga is the Chattanooga Choo Choo hotel. The Southern Appalachia Railway Museum at Oak Ridge keeps equipment, and passenger use of that railroad has ended. Read the scenic guide before anyone plans an Oak Ridge train.

Chattanooga

The Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum dates its founding to 1961. Paul H. Merriman, Robert M. Soule, Jr., and other Chattanooga people set out to keep steam locomotives and passenger cars in the city. Southern Railway gave the museum the old East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia roadbed. Trains from Grand Junction, at 4119 Cromwell Road, pass through the Missionary Ridge Tunnel, completed in 1858, and reach the East Chattanooga shops. The heavy repair shop is the Soule Shops, named for the co-founder. The profile already on this site is the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum page. The days, the dinner train, and the Summerville trips into Georgia are on the scenic guide and the fall, foliage, and Halloween pages.

The locomotive the museum is known for is Southern Railway No. 4501, a 2-8-2 built by Baldwin in 1911. In February 2026 the museum said 4501 would come out of its inspection in the Southern passenger colors it wore when it entered excursion service in 1966, for the museum’s 65th year and the engine’s 115th, and return to black afterward. Southern 2-8-0 No. 630, built by Alco’s Richmond works in 1904 as East Tennessee & Western North Carolina No. 207, is the other Southern steamer in the collection. On March 24, 2026, Sugar Express donated Atlantic Coast Line No. 1504, a United States Railroad Administration light Pacific built at Richmond in August 1919. The museum placed the components in storage while it evaluates the locomotive.

Nashville

The Tennessee Central Railway Museum has run passenger excursions from Nashville since 1989. The office is the former Tennessee Central master mechanic’s building at 220 Willow Street, and it holds the largest collection of that railroad’s paper the museum knows of. The cars go east on the Nashville & Eastern, toward Lebanon, Watertown, and Cookeville, on the dates the museum posts. Those dates, including the holiday trips, are on the scenic guide. The Tennessee Central itself quit on September 1, 1968. The company history is the Tennessee Central page.

Nashville Steam is restoring Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis No. 576, and the museum’s site sends visitors to that project. The NC&StL page is the company.

Jackson

John Luther Jones, Casey Jones, was an Illinois Central engineer living in Jackson. On the night of April 30, 1900, the train he was running, with engine No. 382, collided with a freight at Vaughan, Mississippi, and he was killed. The Rogers ten-wheeler on that train was rebuilt and later scrapped. Jackson opened his house as a museum in 1956. The house later moved to Casey Jones Village, where the museum reopened in 1981.

The visit is the house, the artifacts of his run, and a locomotive lettered Illinois Central No. 382. That engine is the museum’s stand-in for the one on the wreck.

Cookeville

The Cookeville Depot Museum is the Tennessee Central station of 1909, at 116 West Broad Street. It replaced a two-story frame depot the Nashville & Knoxville had built in 1890. Passenger trains stopped using it in 1955. After the Tennessee Central quit, the Louisville & Nashville held the building, and the city bought it in 1975. Restoration followed, the depot went on the National Register in 1985, and the museum opened in the station. Inside are Tennessee Central artifacts and a model of the west side of town in the summer of 1955.

The 4-6-0 outside is Baldwin No. 509, built in 1913 for the Louisiana & Arkansas, where it was first No. 403. It later ran on the Louisiana Midland, reached the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum in 1982, and came to the Friends of the Depot in 2002. The museum lettered it for the Tennessee Central, beside the 500-series ten-wheelers that railroad had used past this depot. A red Tennessee Central caboose of the 1920s sits with it.

Cowan

Cowan is the helper town at the north end of the Cumberland Mountain Tunnel. The Nashville & Chattanooga finished the bore in 1852, and the NC&StL kept pushers here for the grade. The wooden depot of 1904 handled the Nashville–Chattanooga passenger trains until that service ended in 1965. When the Louisville & Nashville scheduled the empty building for demolition, the Cowan Beautification Commission, organized in 1974, bought it for one dollar and agreed to move it off the main line. On September 21, 1976, the depot crossed the track to South Front Street. Cowan Railroad Museum, Inc. was organized in 1979. In 2026 the museum is marking fifty years since the move. CSX freights still pass the park.

Outside are a Porter 2-4-2 of 1920, which the museum bought in 1979, and NC&StL caboose No. 143. That caboose began as a boxcar in 1910 and was rebuilt into a caboose in 1943. A General Electric 44-tonner of 1950 arrived in 2007. The museum describes it as the oldest of four locomotives of that kind fitted with remote radio control in 1962. The company history of the railroad that absorbed the NC&StL is the Louisville & Nashville page.

Townsend

Colonel W. B. Townsend and his investors chartered the Little River Lumber Company and the Little River Railroad in 1901. The railroad was a logging line into the Smokies. It built about 150 miles of track, hauled a museum-stated 560 million board feet, and also carried passengers after 1908. In 1925 the State of Tennessee bought 76,507 acres from Townsend toward what became Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The sawmill closed in 1938. The railroad was abandoned in 1939.

The Little River Railroad and Lumber Company Museum was founded in 1982, at 7747 East Lamar Alexander Parkway. Its locomotive is Lima Shay No. 2147, a 70-ton three-truck engine built on April 14, 1909, and christened Dorothy. It came home to Townsend on Thanksgiving weekend in 1982. The depot from Walland stands on the grounds. The building is a warm-season museum, and the Shay stays outside when the doors are shut. The type history is that page.

Sources

Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum, tvrail.com. Founding dated 1961. Southern Railway donated the former East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia roadbed. Missionary Ridge Tunnel completed in 1858. Grand Junction, 4119 Cromwell Road. Soule Shops named for co-founder Robert M. Soule, Jr. Southern 2-8-2 No. 4501, Baldwin, 1911. Chattanoogan, February 2, 2026: 4501 to wear Southern passenger colors for the museum’s 65th year, then return to black. Southern 2-8-0 No. 630, Alco Richmond, 1904, built as East Tennessee & Western North Carolina No. 207. Atlantic Coast Line No. 1504, Richmond, August 1919, donated March 24, 2026, components placed in storage. Ride and dinner dates stay on the scenic and dinner guides. The existing profile is the museum’s own page.
Tennessee Central Railway Museum, tcry.org. Excursions from Nashville since 1989. Headquarters in the former Tennessee Central master mechanic’s office, 220 Willow Street. Tennessee Central ended September 1, 1968. Excursion dates stay on the scenic guide. Nashville Steam’s restoration of NC&StL No. 576 is the project the museum promotes.
Casey Jones Home & Railroad Museum, caseyjones.com. John Luther Jones killed at Vaughan, Mississippi, April 30, 1900, on Illinois Central engine 382. Jackson house opened as a museum in 1956. House moved to Casey Jones Village in 1980. Museum reopened in 1981. The outdoor locomotive is lettered Illinois Central 382 and is the museum’s stand-in. The original 382 was rebuilt and later scrapped.
Cookeville Depot Museum, cookevilledepot.com. Depot built 1909, replacing an 1890 Nashville & Knoxville station. Address 116 West Broad Street. City of Cookeville purchased the building from the Louisville & Nashville in 1975. National Register, 1985. Baldwin 4-6-0 No. 509, built 1913 for the Louisiana & Arkansas, acquired from the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum in 2002 and lettered for the Tennessee Central.
Cowan Railroad Museum, cowanrailroadmuseum.org. NC&StL depot of 1904. Passenger service ended in 1965. Depot moved September 21, 1976. Museum incorporated in 1979. Porter 2-4-2 of 1920, purchased 1979. Caboose 143, converted in 1943 from a 1910 boxcar. General Electric 44-tonner of 1950, received in 2007, described by the museum as the oldest of four fitted with remote radio control in 1962. Cumberland Mountain Tunnel finished in 1852.
Little River Railroad and Lumber Company Museum, littleriverrailroad.org. Nonprofit founded 1982. Address 7747 East Lamar Alexander Parkway, Townsend. Lima Shay No. 2147, April 14, 1909, 70-ton three-truck, returned Thanksgiving weekend 1982. Little River companies chartered 1901. State purchase of 76,507 acres in 1925. Sawmill closed 1938. Railroad abandoned 1939. Walland depot moved to the site. Indoor hours are seasonal.
Dollywood Express, the Three Rivers Rambler, and the Lookout Mountain Incline, in service since 1895, stay on the scenic-train guide. Southern’s Terminal Station in Chattanooga is the Chattanooga Choo Choo hotel. Passenger use of the Oak Ridge line has ended.

Confirm hours and which locomotive is on the property before you travel.

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