Tennessee Valley Railroad and Museum

The museum began in 1960 as a chapter of the National Railway Historical Society and was formally founded in 1961 by Paul Merriman and Robert Soule Jr. to save obsolete locomotives. Its best-known engine, Southern Railway 4501, a 1911 2-8-2, was bought in 1964 and running again by 1966. Southern donated the tunnel and about a mile and a half of abandoned right of way in 1969, volunteers rebuilt the line, and the permanent East Chattanooga facility opened in 1972. The museum joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

What the plaque says

Tennessee Valley Railroad And Museum Operates over 3 miles near original East Tennessee, Virginia & Georgia Railroad right of way, using pre-1930 equipment, to East Chattanooga terminus. Line passes through 984 foot long Missionary Ridge Tunnel built in 1852-54, the only "Horseshoe" railway tunnel in State. Official Tennessee State Railroad Museum.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Walnut Street Bridge — 5.7 mi
  An 1890 truss bridge now open to walkers, and the place where Alfred Blount in 1893 and Ed Johnson in 1906 were lynched, the case that led to the Supreme Court's only criminal trial.
• Bessie Smith Cultural Center — 5.9 mi
  Chattanooga's African American museum and performance hall on the old Ninth Street, named for the Empress of the Blues, who started out singing for change on that same street.
• Tennessee Aquarium — 6.0 mi
  A river-themed aquarium that opened on May 1, 1992, on the Chattanooga bank where John Ross kept a trading post, tracing a raindrop from the Appalachians to the Gulf.
• Ross's Landing — 6.3 mi
  The Tennessee River landing where Chattanooga began and where Muscogee (Creek) and Cherokee people were put on boats and ferried out in 1837 and 1838.

More markers nearby

• Mary Walker — 2.5 mi
• Roland Hayes — 2.5 mi
• Chickamauga Mound — 3.4 mi
• The McCallie School — 4.0 mi