Groundbreaking in Watertown, Tenn., for new turntable, yard
WATERTOWN, Tenn. — The city, along with the Nashville Steam Preservation Society, the group restoring Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis 4-8-4 No. 576, and the Tennessee Central Railway Museum, broke ground for the Watertown rail yard and turntable installation in mid December 2024. The new facility will be located along the tracks of R.J. Corman’s Nashville & Eastern Railroad.
“[This] will give us the rail upgrades to attract train excursions with approximately 500 passengers each to attend such popular events as their earlier mile-long yard sales, wine tasting trains, the annual Watertown Jazz Fest, and much more,” says John Jewell of the Watertown Rail Steering Committee in an interview with WGNS radio.
The multi-year project will be constructed on City of Watertown park land. Plans call for a 110-foot turntable with two leads connecting to N&ER tracks. Radiating from the turntable will be seven tracks ranging from 80 to 300 feet long and totaling more than 1,900 feet. A 10-foot wide walkway is planned between each of the tracks and along the back side of the park.
Amit Bose, FRA administrator, attended the program, citing in his remarks that the project is being funded in part by a $1.6 million CRISI grant. The federal grant will be matched with $800,000 from other local governments and private contributions.
The Tennessee Central Railway Museum currently works with Watertown on a number of its excursions. Plans call for further collaboration once No. 576 is operational. The new Watertown rail yard is roughly the midpoint on a 90-mile roundtrip from Nashville, the length of a half-day excursion. The turntable will allow equipment to be reoriented in the proper direction for the return.
The turntable was donated to Historic Watertown Inc. by CSX Transportation in December 2018 [see “CSX donates turntable to Tennessee town as part of No. 576 restoration,” News Wire, Dec. 21, 2018.]. The table came from CSX’s Tilford Yard in Atlanta, which was formerly NC&St.L Hills Yard. It had been installed in the 1940s. Tilford Yard had been closed and was dismantled in 2018.
