Virginia is about to pull the trigger on rail to Roanoke and Bristol. We're getting more trains here in Charlottesville. What will TN do? Pave the Smokies?

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True happiness is knowing you are a hypocrite. -- Ivor Cutler

11. Bar cars.

If Knoxville could get passenger rail service. I love trains. I like riding them. What better way to travel on a vacation? You can relax...take your time and enjoy the trip...when you get sleepy you can snooze and still make hundreds of miles progress.

I wish we had passenger rail service all over this country and going to Canada and South America as well. How cool would it be to go on vacation to Argentina or Peru by rail through the Andes Mountains, or to Brazil along the coast of South America?

I love road trips, but I would be just as happy riding a steel rail road as taking a road trip in my truck. And getting there is half the fun anyway.

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"You can't fix stupid..." ~ Ron White"
"I never said I wasn't a brat..." ~ Talidapali

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"It's gettin' so a businessman can't expect no return from a fixed fight. Now, if you can't trust a fix, what can you trust?"

I shot this on the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum's local a few years ago. It's designed to give the feel of 1930s branch line passenger service.

As a life-time member I get unlimited free rides. We don't go very far but it's a pretty good way to scratch the itch.

Visit us at

The Home

I rode a late night train from Charlotte to DC a few years ago and I really tried avoiding going to sleep. You see, I have a slight tendency of snoring. The car which I was seated had a quite a few passengers in it but it was far from full. While sitting there relaxing and enjoying the slight rocking of the train, I thought I'd close my eyes for a brief second to give them some needed rest, ...when I woke up, I found myself totally alone in the car. Next time I think I'll get an upgrade to a bed car. It'd probably be best for everyone.

Anyone here remember when L&N had passenger train service. I remember riding on the last passenger train to leave out of Knoxville. It was only an excursion that went to Ootawah and back. I still have the memory of being a pupster walking down the steps then boarding the train at the depot.

I kind of, just barely, remember my dad taking the train to DC. I think around 1960.

I'm anxiously awaiting train service from Bristol. It seems so counterproductive to drive south to Greenville or spartanburg when you are ultimately traveling north.

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"Whoever corrects a mocker invites insult; whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse."

My sister used to take the train between DC and Knoxville when she was attending college sometime in the 1960s.

I know that securing right-of-ways for passenger rail is a huge hurdle and expensive...

What about building passenger rail in the median strip of the interstate highway system? The land is not being used and the routes are well-traveled without intersections and crossings...

They still don't allow pets on Amtrak. You can get a dog on an airplane, you should be able to get your dog on the train.

Short haul versus long haul travel by train:

I like the "Bullet" trains in Japan. Now those kinds of trains for long haul passenger service coast-to-coast would be very practical. They get you there in a reasonable amount of time. They would only have to stop in major cities along their route like Memphis, Dallas, Albuquerque, Chicago, etc. They are fast trains, and with careful planning, they could be very safe for wildlife as well along their routes.

For short haul I favor the mag-lev trains like the ones they run in Europe. One big bonus is the trains themselves produce no carbon emissions, although the electric plants here that would supply their power would, but we can work on reducing the carbon emissions of electric power plants here as well...since we are going to have to anyway. The elevated tracks make sense around urban landscapes where crowding and right-of-way issues crop up.

There is really no good reason why rail travel is not more available in the U.S., except maybe that we just haven't got the will to do it.

The rental car industry could get a boost from this mode of travel as well by offering rentals on electric cars for folks to hire for running about at their vacation destinations. The car makers get a big boost in sales of electric cars as well. The hotel proprietors could get on board with charging stations at their hotels which would attract the rail travelers that have rented those electric cars. And we all get a big boost of cleaner air and less congestion on the roads and interstate highways.

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"You can't fix stupid..." ~ Ron White"
"I never said I wasn't a brat..." ~ Talidapali