Chattanooga, Tennessee:
Chattanooga Choo-Choo Trolley

Description

The Chattanooga Choo Choo hotel complex is housed in the former Terminal Station of the Southern Railway. After passenger train service to Terminal Station ended in 1970, the station building was converted to a hotel, some of whose rooms are in converted railroad passenger coaches. The former station building and track area also house various attractions, including an operating trolley line.

The line starts at the station house on one of the former station tracks, runs out to the end of the grounds, and loops back to what was originally a theater on the other side of the entrance to the complex's parking lot. The total length is about 0.7 mile (1.1 km). The former theater is now used by the local transit authority for office space, and the trolley now uses only about half of the line, as far as the end of the grounds near the tennis courts, about 0.3 mile (0.5 km).

The line has a single car, originally built in 1924 by Perley Thomas Car Works of High Point, North Carolina for New Orleans. It last ran there on the Canal Street line in 1964, when that line closed. It was acquired by the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum (also located in Chattanooga), and then by the Chattanooga Choo Choo, which began operating it when the hotel opened in 1973. It now runs a few times a day on short out-and-back excursions.