The Tennessean

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I rode the Tennessean to Carson-Newman College in Jefferson City, TN during the 1960s. Are there any pamphlets or books about the history of that train? Where do I start?

-- Martha Joy Noble (mjoynoble@hotmail.com), December 22, 1999

Answers

The December 1990 and January 1991 issues of Mainline Modeler contained an extensive story on the Tennessean. Also, try "Southern Railway Varnish," by Ralph Ward.

-- Joe Daniels (kjmcjm@home.com), December 24, 1999.

Hi Martha. I, too would like more information on the Tennessean. My grandfather was the first Pullman conductor to take her out on her first trip. He used to tell how excited he was. That she had two headlights. One was mobile and capable of making a figure-8. He said that as they were riding through an agricultural area, the engineer had that headlight performing it's figure eight up into the night sky and was laying on the horn all the way and people came running out across their fields in the darkness to see the new train. On many of his trips, there would be passengers of noteriety. One young man who rode his train on a few occassions , my grandfather recalled quite well. Most memorable to him was how the train would stop at a cross road (not a regular stop) and this young man ("some kind of a hip hop singer"_) would jump off, run over to the road where a big pink Catty convertable was waiting, toss his bag in the back seat then jump into the front seat between an older lady and man and drive off. The young man's name was Elvis Presley.

-- kk anderson (dura7mater@aol.com), July 04, 2001.

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