Tennessee

Company History: The TENN was created in 1905 when Samuel Spencer, who at the time was president of Southern Railway, bought and re-organized the Paint Rock Coal & Coke Company Railroad between Oneida and Paint Rock, Tennessee. Spencer and his successors pushed the line past Paint Rock to Norma, Newlands, Smokey Junction, Hembree, Shea, Fork Mountain, Dean, Carbon Hill and Clinchmore. TENN’s fortunes rose and fell with those of the coal business and in 1959, the line was nearly abandoned before a surge of traffic revived the company. The first diesel, a secondhand RS-1 arrived in 1955. They bought their fifth and final RS-1 (all secondhand of Rutland, Susquehanna and Atlanta & St. Andrews Bay heritage) in 1963 and sent the last of their steam locomotives to the scrapper. In 1973, Tennessee Railroad was acquired by Southern Railway who for years hauled 125 loaded hoppers on a typical day on this line. NS sold the line to a local coal company in 2005. They managed to load one coal train and that was it. Since then, part of the route has been used for the New River Railway tourist train.

Successor/Parent History: The Southern Railway (reporting mark SOU) (also known as Southern Railway Company) was a US class 1 railroad that was based in the Southern United States. It was the product of nearly 150 predecessor lines that were combined, reorganized and recombined beginning in the 1830s, formally becoming the Southern Railway in 1894.

At the end of 1970 Southern operated 6,026 miles (9,698 km) of railroad, not including its Class I subsidiaries AGS (528 miles or 850 km) CofG (1729 miles) S&A (167 miles) CNOTP (415 miles) GS&F (454 miles) and twelve Class II subsidiaries. That year Southern itself reported 26111 million net ton-miles of revenue freight and 110 million passenger-miles; AGS reported 3854 and 11, CofG 3595 and 17, S&A 140 and 0, CNO&TP 4906 and 0.3, and GS&F 1431 and 0.3

The railroad joined forces with the Norfolk and Western Railway (N&W) in 1982 to form the Norfolk Southern Corporation. The Norfolk Southern Corporation was created in response to the creation of the CSX Corporation (its rail system was later transformed to CSX Transportation in 1986). The Southern Railway was renamed Norfolk Southern Railway in 1990 and continued under that name ever since. Seven years later in 1997 the railroad absorbed the Norfolk and Western Railway, ending the Norfolk and Western's existence as an independent railroad.

Brief History: The U.S. is a country of 50 states covering a vast swath of North America, with Alaska in the northwest and Hawaii extending the nation’s presence into the Pacific Ocean. Major Atlantic Coast cities are New York, a global finance and culture center, and capital Washington, DC. Midwestern metropolis Chicago is known for influential architecture and on the west coast, Los Angeles' Hollywood is famed for filmmaking.