The Chattanooga Southern Railway was founded in 1887 and began operations in 1891. It ran about of track between

Chattanooga, Tennessee Chattanooga ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States. Located along the Tennessee River bordering Georgia, it also extends into Marion County on its western end. With a population of 181,099 in 2020, ...

, and

Gadsden, Alabama Gadsden is a city in and the county seat of Etowah County in the U.S. state of Alabama. It is located on the Coosa River about northeast of Birmingham and southwest of Chattanooga, Tennessee. It is the primary city of the Gadsden Metropolitan ...

, hauling mainly iron, timber, and coal from the

Lookout Mountain Lookout Mountain is a mountain ridge located at the northwest corner of the U.S. state of Georgia, the northeast corner of Alabama, and along the southeastern Tennessee state line in Chattanooga. Lookout Mountain was the scene of the 18th-centu ...

area. The railroad's nickname, ''The Pigeon Mountain Route'', came from several miles of track that ran along the base of Pigeon Mountain. In 1896 the railroad ran into financial trouble and was reorganized as the ''Chattanooga Southern Railroad''. The company operated under that name for about 15 years at which time it was again reorganized and began operating as the

Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia Railway The Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia Railroad was created through a reorganization of the Chattanooga Southern Railway in 1911. A few years later, in 1922, the line's name was changed to the Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia Railway and was also kn ...

References

Defunct Alabama railroads Defunct Tennessee railroads Predecessors of the Southern Railway (U.S.) Railway companies established in 1887 Railway companies disestablished in 1895 Defunct Georgia (U.S. state) railroads {{US-rail-transport-stub