The Steam Chasers in Nashville, Tennessee
I have a core group of about 4 railfan friends; Ryan, Dave, Bill and Bryan, that I hit the road with. This weekend was the first time since a steam train trip to the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum in Chattanooga back in 2017, that we all five have been on a trip together and we had a great time despite the overcast, dreary and raining weather.
On Saturday March, 9th, 2019 the five of us made a trip to Nashville, Tennessee to see the movement of the NC&StL Steam locomotive at Union Station in downtown Nashville, Tennessee as part of it’s movement by CSX Transportation with it’s renumbered CSXT 576 unit.
After several hours on display the locomotive was then towed on its own wheels to the restoration facility at the Tennessee Central Railway Museum, where it will undergo and estimated two years of restoration. The Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway was a railway company operated in the southern United States in Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia. It began as the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad, chartered in Nashville in December 11, 1845, built to 5 ft (1,524 mm) gauge and was the first railway to operate in the state of Tennessee. By the turn of the twentieth century, the NC&StL grew into one of the most important railway systems in the southern United States.
The plan is to run 576 in excursion service out of Nashville once the repairs are complete. Below is a live video I did from Union Station.