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663 Railroad Ave, Tracy City, TN, USA

Easy

In the late 1840s, construction of the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad was already in progress and had reached the base of the plateau below Sewanee. In 1853, Major A.E. Barney, a civil engineer, was commissioned to designed a spur rail line to carry coal from the mines of the Plateau to market, beginning in Sewanee and, over time, extending to Tracy City, Coalmont, Gruetli-Laager, and Palmer.


Barney’s “Mountain Goat Railroad” earned its name due to its steep climb up onto the Cumberland Plateau from Cowan. At the time, it was the steepest railroad grade in the world.


In its heyday, the Mountain Goat line ran 3 or 4 trains a day with both coal and passenger cars. It stopped running passenger cars in 1971 and freight trains in 1984. CSX officially abandoned the line in 1985 and removed the tracks in 1986.


In the early 2000s, the Mountain Goat Trail Alliance was formed to transform nearly 40 miles of the former rail bed into a paved, multi-modal trail.

Black Canyon Cascade
Black Canyon Cascade
Blue Hole Falls
Blue Hole Falls
Denny Cove & Falls
Denny Cove & Falls
Fiery Gizzard Trail, a 2-day Adventure
Fiery Gizzard Trail, a 2-day Adventure
Foster Falls
Foster Falls
Grundy Forest Loop/CCC Camp
Grundy Forest Loop/CCC Camp
Hanes Hole Falls
Hanes Hole Falls
Lone Rock Coke Ovens
Lone Rock Coke Ovens
Mountain Goat Trail
Mountain Goat Trail
Roundhouse Park and Historic Tracy City
Roundhouse Park and Historic Tracy City
Schoolhouse Falls
Schoolhouse Falls
Sycamore Falls
Sycamore Falls

In and around Tracy City

Historic Mountain Goat Railroad

Historic Mountain Goat Railroad

A real-life version of “The Little Engine that Could”

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