Then, they backed up to the Southern’s Knoxville & Augusta (K&A) “highline,” where they reversed again and crossed the river. Trains departing the terminal briefly entered the riverfront. Today, university parking lots S7 and C18 occupy the property. In 1982, the same site hosted the World’s Fair’s Australian Pavilion.
The railroad’s Knoxville terminal was in the Second Creek valley at the intersection of Main and Cumberland Avenues. dubbed Smoky Mountain “the Shrine of Shortline Railroading.” By this time, the L&N and Southern were operating diesel-powered streamliners and all-steel fast freights. Thus, authors and rail fans came from afar to write about and photograph the “Slow & Easy” before it was too late. Oliver built his line anyway, still desiring an over-mountain link with another railroad in the Carolinas.ĭuring its era, the Smoky Mountain Railroad operated unique steam locomotives and wooden passenger and freight cars. However, Oliver’s friend, Southern president Samuel Spencer, perished in a Virginia train wreck. Oliver envisioned selling his new railroad to the growing Southern system. Throughout its financially-rocky history, the line operated under four different names: KS&E (1909-1921), Knoxville & Carolina (1921-1926), Tennessee & North Carolina (1926-1938) and Smoky Mountain (1938-1961). Before the mid-Thirties, a 2-1/4 hour train ride was the fastest conveyance between Knoxville and Sevierville for passengers and freight. It predated Chapman Highway by a quarter-century and today’s Exit 407 by decades.
It provided new forms of both transportation and entertainment to patrons in that much simpler age. Headlines at both ends of the line celebrated its completion. During the Roaring Twenties, an affiliated line, the Pigeon River Railroad, extended service to Pigeon Forge and McCookville. Those initials, as well as the trains’ 11 mile per hour speeds, inspired the line’s still-used nickname, “Knoxville, Slow & Easy.” From 1910 until 1961, the “Slow & Easy” linked downtown Knoxville with Sevierville.
This was the Smoky Mountain Railroad, originally built as the Knoxville, Sevierville & Eastern Railway, or KS&E. Its train crews worked hard just to cross the Tennessee River on departure and to enter the terminal on arrival. Its terminal stood in the shadow of The Hill, the University of Tennessee’s main campus. Yet, many Knoxvillians, both new and not-so-new, are unaware of another railroad that served downtown Knoxville for a half-century. Another downtown fixture, the “Three Rivers Rambler” passenger train, returns the lonesome whistles of iron horses to a city once filled with them. Its two beautifully-preserved downtown depots, the Louisville & Nashville (L&N) and the Southern, stand as testaments to that heritage. Knoxville’s railroad history is a proud one.
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