Knoxville, Sevierville & Eastern Ry. • Knoxville & Carolina R.R. • Tennessee & North Carolina Ry.

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Rolling Stock

Mixed train daily - Pacific #110 hauls a typical SMRR consist in December 1941. (Joseph P. Murphy, Jr. photo)

The rolling stock of the Smoky Mountain Railroad and its predecessor lines was ancient compared to that of its Class I neighbors, the Southern Railway and Louisville & Nashville Railroad. While the Southern and L&N were operating huge fleets of state-of-the-art passenger and freight cars, the "Slow & Easy," in its waning years, made do with one antique combine car and a few wooden boxcars and truss-rod flatcars. In fact, the only modern revenue cars one might have spotted in Sevierville were those belonging to other lines.

During the railroad's earliest years, the Knoxville, Sevierville & Eastern-era, it boasted at least two dozen items of rolling stock. The few available photographs from the period suggest this equipment was well-maintained, as evidenced by the employees seemingly proud to pose with it. However, years of financial woes and legal wrangling, along with a shameful lack of capital reinvestment in the "Slow & Easy" by successive owners, resulted in slim rolling stock pickin's for the railroad's final two decades.

Pictured below are some of the cars of the latter-day Smoky Mountain Railroad.

Converted varnish - SMRR combine #102, seen here in Sevierville, was originally a day coach. (Courtesy Alton Underwood)

Freight Cars

Local service only - Freshly-painted 36-footer #504, one of only three (known) boxcars to serve the Smoky Mountain R.R. in its later years. (L.C. Lively photo)


Just in case - The derailment tool flatcar which preceded latter-day Smoky Mountain Railroad trains, seen here in Knoxville. (Courtesy Alton Underwood)

Caboose