Current Operations
Today, TVRM is still running trains and has started local freight service for a company next to their mainline. Visitors can also take a one-hour 6-mile (9.7 km) round-trip ride, typically pulled by a steam locomotive, and see what railroading was like in the golden age of railroading.
In 2004, TVRM began providing half-day excursion trains to the Hiwassee Loop, a corkscrew tunnel through which the train passes near Farner, Tennessee. These trips run out of the station in downtown Etowah, Tennessee (about an hour's drive northeast of Chattanooga), but since it is along the main CSX mainline heavily used for freight, a bus takes travelers a short ride south to Hiwassee/Ocoee Scenic River State Park to transfer. The 50-mile (80 km) excursion goes east along the Hiwassee River and through the Hiwassee Gorge to Farner, just short of the North Carolina state line. Full-day trips turn south, ending at lunchtime in the twin towns of Copperhill, Tennessee and McCaysville, Georgia, and then returning in the afternoon. This route is that of the Atlanta, Knoxville and Northern Railway, also called the Hiwassee Route. The remainder of the AK&N (later L&N and then CSX) line in Georgia is operated by the Georgia Northeastern Railroad, with subsidiary Blue Ridge Scenic Railway operating another heritage railroad from McCaysville to Blue Ridge, Georgia, and GNRR freight running south of there.
TVRM also handles freight. On TVRM's Chattanooga Division, there is one industry, Allied Metals. TVRM also handles switching operations at Enterprise South Industrial Park (ESIP), location of the Volkswagen Chattanooga Assembly Plant. Even though there are no major industries along the Hiwassee Division, TVRM can store several hundred cars at the Copperhill, Tennessee yard for other railroads.
Read more about this topic: Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum
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