Locomotive 4501 Inaugurates 1966 Southern Steam Program (editor's title)

Locomotive 4501 waits for departure time at Terminal Station in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on a nine-day, 1450 mile trip to to Louisville and Richmond, Virginia, in 1966. The locomotive, built for the Southern in 1911, had been sold to the Kentucky & Tennessee, a Stearns, Kentucky, short line, in 1948 and renumbered 12. When was retired by the K&T in 1963, Paul H. Merriman bought it for the 4501 Corporation with $5,000 of his own money. He restored it with help from volunteers at the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum so it could be used for excursions on the Southern Railway. The station in the background has been the Chattanooga Choo Choo hotel since 1973. Now, Southern successor Norfolk Southern has inaugurated its 21st steam program in 2011 in the same city with locomotive 630 and has arranged with TVRM to repair and return 4501 to mainline excursion service. John Gruber photographed both the 1966 and 2011 events.