City of Memphis (train)

The City of Memphis was a 239-mile (385 km) passenger train route operated by the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway connecting Nashville and Memphis, Tennessee.

Background

The City of Memphis was powered by one of the last steam locomotives ever streamlined. The six cars were all rebuilt and streamlined by the NC&StL shops from heavyweight cars. The six cars were originally Pullman Heavyweight Parlor Cars before purchase by the NC&STL for conversion to coaches in June 1941.

Equipment

The six car consist had a revenue seating capacity of 204 and was built to operate on a fast five hour schedule between Nashville and Memphis a distance of 239 miles (385 km). The train set operated a daily round trip and lasted beyond the Louisville and Nashville Railroad takeover of the NC&StL, although the name was removed from the service by 1955.

Memphis, Tennessee

Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the fourth Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers.

Memphis had a population of 653,450 in 2013, making it the largest city in the state of Tennessee, the largest city on the Mississippi River, the third largest in the greater Southeastern United States, and the 23rd largest in the United States.

The greater Memphis metropolitan area, including adjacent counties in Mississippi and Arkansas, had a 2014 population of 1,317,314. This makes Memphis the second-largest metropolitan area in Tennessee, surpassed by metropolitan Nashville.

Memphis is the youngest of Tennessee's major cities, founded in 1819 as a planned city by a group of wealthy Americans including judge John Overton and future president Andrew Jackson. A resident of Memphis is referred to as a Memphian, and the Memphis region is known, particularly to media outlets, as "Memphis & the Mid-South".