The Nashville & Chattanooga Railway, predecessor to the NC&StL Railway, was organized in 1848 by a group of prominent Nashville businessmen. The line's first president was
Vernon K. Stevenson, who was connected to wealth from the Grundy and Bass families of Nashville and was a vigorous promotor of a line between Nashville and Chattanooga; he would serve for 16 years. The first locomotive in Nashville arrived in December 1850 on the
steamboat Beauty along with 13 freight cars and one passenger car. The train made its first trip the following spring: to
Antioch, Tennessee. It took nine years to complete the of line between Nashville and Chattanooga, and the
Hickman and Obion Railroad to
Hickman, Kentucky, to reach the
Mississippi River. In 1873, it was reincorporated as the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway (NC&StL); the company's tracks never actually reached
St. Louis, Missouri, in the north. In early 1877, the NC&StL bought the bankrupt
Tennessee and Pacific Railroad from the state government and operated it as a connection to
Lebanon, Tennessee. The company also took full control of the
Duck River Valley Narrow Gauge Railway in 1888, converting it to
standard gauge the following year. It had already leased the line, which linked
Columbia,
Lewisburg, and
Fayetteville, Tennessee from its owners in 1879, when they had difficulty completing the final stretch into Fayetteville. The railroad's only heavy repair shops for locomotives and cars were located in
Nashville, Tennessee. The first roundhouse and machine shop were built in 1850, which were expanded by Confederate troops during the Civil War. By 1888 the shops had become obsolete and inadequate, so they were moved to a larger tract of land two miles west, below Charlotte Avenue. The new shops featured a full-circle roundhouse and a dozen shop buildings served by two transfer tables. The
Louisville and Nashville Railroad, an aggressive competitor of the NC&StL, gained a controlling interest in 1880 through a hostile stock takeover that caused much rancor between the cities of Nashville and Louisville. However, the railroads continued to operate separately until finally merging in 1957. The company gave up steam operations in 1953. After the 1880 takeover, the NC&StL acquired branch lines in Kentucky and Alabama, and expanded from Nashville to Memphis. In 1890 the tracks reached
Atlanta, Georgia, by leasing the state-owned
Western and Atlantic Railroad. In 1902, the L&N was acquired by the
Atlantic Coast Line Railroad in a takeover similar to that of the NC&StL, but continued to operate as a separate company. In 1982, the L&N's corporate existence ended when it was merged into ACL's successor, the
Seaboard System Railroad. After several other mergers, in 1986 the Seaboard System was renamed
CSX Transportation, which continues to use the original NC&StL route between Nashville, Chattanooga, and Atlanta. Other portions of the system, such as the route to Hickman, have been abandoned. ==Mileage and revenues==