Tennessee Central Railroad
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| Reporting mark | TC |
|---|---|
| Locale | Tennessee |
| Dates of operation | 1893–1968 |
| Successor | Nashville and Eastern Railroad (Nashville to Monterey) |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge |
The Tennessee Central Railway was founded in 1884 as the Nashville and Knoxville Railroad by Alexander S. Crawford. It was an attempt to open up a rail route from the coal and minerals of East Tennessee to the markets of the midstate, a service which many businessmen felt was not being adequately provided by the existing railroad companies. They also wanted to ship coal and iron ore to the Northeastern US over the Cincinnati Southern Railway, which was leased to the Southern and operated as the Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railway [CNOTP], through their Cincinnati gateway. The N&K was only completed between Lebanon, where it connected to a Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway branch from Nashville, and Standing Stone (now Monterey).
By the 1880s railroads were becoming a mature industry and it was not easy for a new competitor to break in. The firm and its successor companies would struggle for decades with both financial woes and hostility from the more established lines. (It was unable to use Nashville's ornate new Union Station terminal for instance, as that was controlled by the rival Louisville and Nashville Railroad and its subsidiary Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis.) The Tennessee Central linked Knoxville directly, by a link to the Southern Railway's subsidiary Harriman and Northeastern from Harriman to Knoxville, with Nashville via a route which ascended the Cumberland Plateau Escarpment at Walden's Ridge between Emory Gap and Crossville. The traditional major route for this passage had been made via Chattanooga.
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