I see the Chattanooga City Council has applied for a federal grant to study the feasibility of passenger train service between Nashville and Atlanta. I believe this is the third such taxpayer funded “study” since passenger train travel ended here in the mid-1960s. I understand a fourth study is also underway to link NYC to Houston coming through Chattanooga and Knoxville.
My first contact with passenger trains was in 1950 when we went to pick my grandmother up at what is now the Chattanooga Choo Choo. In 1953 my parents took me on a Southern Railway train to Atlanta to visit my aunt and uncle. We departed from the same station where we picked up my grandmother.
On board, I remember dinner in the diner. We sat at tables in drug store style chairs and the glasses and plates were weighted so as to not slide around on the table as the train moved. The coach chairs were over stuffed and reclined with a changeable white cover that had the RR logo for a headrest.
Since then I’ve been cross-country to California, Maine, Montreal and Quebec City in Canada on the train. I’ve been to New York and New Orleans on the Crescent many times. You could say I love train travel and the culture it once was. I’ve even been involved in a partial derailment outside Greenville, SC but I still enjoy train travel.
However I’m still wondering what tangible results did we see from the previous studies? They seem to come and go until the next study and I’m not optimistic about either of these new and certainly expensive ones for obvious reasons. I hope I’m wrong.
Ralph Miller