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NC&StL Steam Engine 576, now displayed in Centennial Park in Nashville

This famous Southern United States railroad began as the Nashville and Chattanooga Railroad, chartered in Nashville in December 1845 and was the first railway to operate in the state of Tennessee.

It took nine years to complete the 150 miles (240 km) of line between the two cities, a task which was made much more difficult by the steep elevations of the Highland Rim and Cumberland Plateau lying in between. A tunnel of 2,228 feet (679 m) near Cowan, Tennessee was considered an engineering marvel of its time. Due to the difficulties of the terrain, this line between Tennessee cities actually crossed over into two neighboring states, Alabama and Georgia, for short distances. New towns sprang up along the line during construction, such as Tullahoma and Estill Springs.

During the Civil War, this line became highly strategic to both the Union and Confederate armies. The Tennessee campaigns of 1862 and 1863 saw Union troops force the Confederates back from Nashville to Chattanooga almost exactly along the line of the railroad. It was repeatedly attacked, sabotaged, damaged, and repaired, and was used at various times to supply both armies.

710 at TVRM (former Amtrak 772) at the East Chattanooga Shops in 2004. Jason Trew photo.

After the war, the company made acquisitions of other, smaller lines to the north, and was reincorporated as the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway ("NC&StL") in 1873 (although none of the company's tracks ever actually entered St. Louis, Missouri). The Louisville & Nashville Railroad, an aggressive, potential competitor of the NC&StL gained controlling interest in it in 1880 with a hostile stock takeover that created massive civic rancor between the cities of Nashville and Louisville. The two railroads continued to operate separately for over 75 years before finally merging in 1957.

Despite the takeover, the NC&StL was allowed to continue to grow with the acquisition of various branch lines in Kentucky and Alabama and expansion from Nashville to Memphis. In 1890 the railroad reached Atlanta, Georgia, by successfully leasing the state-owned Western and Atlantic Railroad.

The L&N, itself controlled by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad in the same fashion that the L&N controlled the NC&StL, was eventually merged into the CSX freight rail conglomerate, which continues to use the original NC&StL tracks between Nashville, Chattanooga and Atlanta.

In 1953, the NC&StL donated its last remaining steam engine, No. 576, to the city of Nashville. This engine, a J3 class 4-8-4, originally known as a Yellow Jacket manufactured by the American Locomotive Company ("ALCO"), has been on display in Centennial Park ever since. In deference to its Southern heritage, NC&StL itself referred to 4-8-4 locomotives as Dixies while most other railroads called them Northerns.

In 2004, a former NC&StL diesel locomotive, GP7 710, was restored to her original paint scheme by the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum.

• Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works

• 576 special interest group
• NC&StL Preservation Society, Inc.
• A short history of the firm
• NC&StL Preservation Society page
• Preserving the last NC&StL engine