The Memphis & Charleston Railroad 1851-1865 The Memphis & Charleston Railroad began limited service over newly built segments of track in August of 1852. By May 1857, the line was offering regular service over the entire 272-mile route from Stevenson to Memphis. With its link in Stevenson to the Nashville & Chattanooga Railroad, the Memphis & Charleston became part of the first contiguous rail route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River. The Memphis & Charleston Railroad was unique in many ways. 1) It was the first railroad to offer sleeper cars. 2) It was the only railroad to run east-west in what was to become the Confederacy. 3) It made more money from its passenger service than from its freight service. 4) It was not conceived and operated as a local branch railroad, but as a long-haul route. Direct routes to the east coast and the northeast were enabled by the decision of Memphis and Charleston planners and management to adopt a standard rail gauge and to lease usage rights from adjoining rail lines. The passengers on competing rail lines, lines had that opted instead for alternate gauges and failed to negotiate usage rights with neighboring lines, were forced to de-board one train and re-board another to continue their journeys. In many cases, that distance between train terminals was spanned by steamboat or keelboat, since most early southern railroads were typically designed as nothing more than routes to the nearest river port. 5) It ran parallel a major river--the Tennessee--rather than merely feeding into the river traffic infrastructure. This parallel route was the result of the Tennessee having defeated every attempt at establishing regular freight transport over its main channel from Paducah to Knoxville. Passage was disrupted at Muscle Shoals and at a bend in the river just upstream of South Pittsburg where several geological structures--the suck, the skillet, the boiling pot--made navigation difficult under the best of conditions and even impossible much of the year. The Tennessee was essentially three different rivers. In 1828, a small steamboat, The Atlas, navigated the length of the river to claim a $640 prize in Knoxville, but regular and dependable commercial service for the length of the river was never realized. The rivers most notable historian, Donald Davidson, noted, ...of all the great rivers east of the Mississippi, it has been least friendly to civilization. It mocked the schemes of improvers. It wore out the patience of legislators. Tawny and unsubdued, an Indian among rivers, the old Tennessee threw back mans improvements in his face and went its own way, which was not the way of the white man. (p6) The Memphis and Charleston Railroad was a substitute for the river, not a complement to it. As a result, those towns that put their trust in the eventual ability of technology and engineering to overcome the problems of Tennessee River navigation.
Posted on: Sun, 21 Sep 2014 20:27:04 +0000
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