NASHVILLE — Nearly 10 years after the initial announcement to relocate Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis No. 576 from Downtown Nashville’s Centennial Park for restoration to operation at the nearby Tennessee Central Railway Museum, the Nashville Steam Preservation Society is closing in on the 4-8-4’s first fireup in nearly 75 years. This comes after hitting some major milestones in 2025.
“If you break it down, reinstalling the tubes and flues in January was a pretty big deal,” said Project Foreman Stephen Hook. “Then there’s finishing the boiler patches on the inside, installing 1,800-plus new staybolts, changing up to 15 flush patches, and replacing the firebox’s thermic siphon. All that came to a close with the [September] hydrostatic test.
“This was the first major test that said, ‘All right, we’ve done good work. Let’s finish this thing.’”
Nashville Steam wrapped up 2025 with a new matching grant for the fabrication and installation of new superheaters. Starting the new year in 2026, the approximate $45,000 goal had exceeded above $50,000. Installation of the new units is currently underway; along with reinstalling the throttle cam, contracted out for work at the Steam Railroading Institute in Owosso, Mich.; lapping the valves; fitting the newly-fabricated ashpan; and running pipes.
“The rest of it is just getting the instruments tuned before the band really sounds good,” Hook concluded, knowing that the long-awaited first of multiple steam tests is finally in reach.
The team hopes to have No. 576 in steam in 2026 for off-the-record testing and fine-tuning. The goal is to begin excursion operations along the Nashville & Eastern Railroad the following year. Vice President Joey Bryan notes, however, that these are goals, not guarantees.
“With any steam locomotive restoration, the finish line is a moving target,” he explains. “It does not cooperate with us. But, we are getting closer to the time that everyone’s been waiting for.”
“The excitement is certainly building. Being in Nashville, we want to throw the biggest party around when [No. 576] gets rolling. We’re already in contact with some of our friends in the country music world to see what they can do to help out. This is an encore 70-plus years in the making. So we really want to give it the recognition and applause it deserves.”
In addition to prep work for the first fireup, support for the locomotive is in development from both a personnel and infrastructure standpoint. Collaborating efforts with the Tennessee Central Railway Museum (TCRM) since day one for Nashville Steam will evolve in readying all groups for the eventual operations, according to Hook. Bryan adds that an influx of new volunteers will be expected as the mindset shifts from restoration to running. Meanwhile, work progresses on readying the shared TCRM site with coal storage, while Watertown, Tenn., one of the planned excursion destinations, prepares for the installation of the turntable donated to the city by CSX Transportation and possibly a new water spout in the future.
Bryan is spot on when excitement is building for what is soon to come. Though with all that excitement comes time for reminiscing on nearly ten years since the project first started: right in the middle of a city park with the closest, viable access to the rail network being 2 miles away.
“Just thinking back on 10 years, we learned a lot in those first few years when we were still in the park. People forget we were actually still there for about four years. That first $500,000 goal was very difficult to get because you had to really tell the story of the locomotive and then really get people to buy in for support.
“I’ll caution any new group forming out there: pledges do not mean guaranteed funding.”
“When you think about the fundraising programs that took place, especially the amount of money that was raised as we took the locomotive out of the park, I think that was incredibly successful,” Hook adds. “That really proved to people that we became a credible and capable organization to anybody who doubted our physical ability to relocate the locomotive and then do this work. We’re grateful for the people who saw the vision beforehand, as that definitely helped in making it real.”
“We also want to thank our friends and partners at the Tennessee Central Railway Museum and RJ Corman for all of their help and support as we move into testing and operations of No. 576,” Bryan concludes.
Visit the Nashville Steam Preservation Society website for more information and to support the project.
Retired since 1952, this will be a second career chance for the eighty-four-year-old NCSL #576…