Why can’t I take a train from Chattanooga to Nashville?
Chances looked dim. Young Michael was set to board the last ticketed passenger train to Nashville. The very next passenger train to leave Union Station, southbound to Atlanta, would mark the end of commercial passenger rail service in Chattanooga.
One Friday in the spring of 1971, 5-year-old train enthusiast Michael Meadows and his grandmother boarded the northbound train to Nashville at Chattanooga’s Union Station. Meadows’ grandfather was a train man, The Chattanooga Times reported, and Michael Meadows hoped to follow suit.