Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum
CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. – The Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum is preserving a piece of southern shortline railroading history with the unveiling of its newly restored Tennessee, Alabama & Georgia Railway EMD GP38 No. 80. The blue-and-yellow-painted high-nose GP38 was posed outside of the railroad’s Soule Shops over the weekend.
“TAG 80 has been restored to operating condition and repainted in its original color scheme,” the railroad says on its Facebook page.
The locomotive was built for the Tennessee, Alabama & Georgia in 1968 before Southern Railway acquired the roughly 90-mile short line operating between Chattanooga and Gadsden, Ala. In later years, the locomotive served as Norfolk Southern No. 2879 before it was retired and delivered to the TVRM’s collection several years ago. It is the last remaining locomotive from the TA&G roster.
Love these Geeps
Nice! Great to see that locomotive restored & painted!
It is good to see that 2nd and 3rd generation diesels are being restored. In the last couple of years, there have been several museums that have restored and operated diesels like this one.I think steamers and streamliners are great, but I grew up with locomotives like the one in this story. I wish someone, maybe TRAINS magazine, would publish a list of restored historic diesels along with where they are and, if they are in a museum’s collection, the hours they are available to be seen and photographed. Incidentally, this is a fine looking unit.
Who is John A Chambliss? That name appears on the unit under the cab window.
Sweet looking unit!
Warren D. Stephens of the TA&G Historical Society said that in contrast with the last sentence in the story, this is not the last surviving TAG locomotive. In fact there are two steam engines and four diesels that are known to still exist.
John Chambliss was honored on his 80th birthday with the naming of the locomotive in his honor. According to the March 13 1968 edition of the Chattanooga Times John Chambliss led a group of investors who purchased the line in 1928 from the son of the original owner C. E. James who also owned the Chattanooga Traction Company. John and later his son Jac were both counsel for the TAG.
beautiful
It a great looking unit, love the high hood
Mr. Krewer because it would cost to remove the dynamic brake equipment and restore the roof panels to original. She looks good to me unless you want to kick in 10 to 20 grand to remove the dynamics.
A REAL heritage unit! Very nicely done.
The TA&G 80 had a high short hood from day one, but it was not built with dynamic brakes. They were added by SR or NS later in life. Was there a particular reason why that modification was not undone?
I need to get down there and photograph this one. Well done, good job TVRM.
Great to see the TAG preserved. When NS first announced the Heritage units it was reported that one was to be a TAG unit. Apparently, the selection was second guessed. But, now, seeing original paint on the original locomotive is hard to beat!