Great Smokey Mountain Railroad

cdavenport

Member
Sep 1, 2006
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Athens,Georgia
Located in Bryson, NC (western NC about 2 hours north of Athens, GA off US 441). The whole family took my father-in-law on the trip to Nantahala Gorge to celebrate his 80th birthday. He and his father worked on the L&N back in the day.

Restored cars are pulled by a 1955 EMD GP9. The line has two of them, real beauties.

Associated with the GSMR is a fabulous Lionel museum with around 10,000 Lionel engines, cars, etc worth in excess of $5 million. I was expecting a dinkey tourist trap. Not so, the main layout is 27 x 45 feet with a full-time engineer/maintainer. This guy LOVES his job. I have seen many museums of all types, all over the world. This one ranks well up there!

Both are well worth the visit if you are in the area.
 
I was out there a few years ago for a passenger train chase and a tour of the property. A class act, indeed! What's even cooler than the passenger trains are their freight operations. Quite a show!