Does anyone have any information on the combining of the Southern Railway’s Pelican and Tennesseean during the late 60s?

-- C. Timothy Branner, II (ctim2@aol.com), October 28, 2003

Answers

The Tennessean began running May 17, 1941. The Pelican began running in 1947. The two trains were combined as one train, Pelican-Tennessean, in October 1966. In 1968 "Tennessean" was dropped from the name, the train running once again as just The Pelican for another year, 'til 1969.

-- Tom Underwood (tlunder@attglobal.net), October 29, 2003.

I have some Pelican related questions but not from a purely Southern standpoint. I have several photos of the Pelican diverted over the Tennessee, Alabama & Georgia Railway – on at least three separate occasions - because of derailments between Attalla and Chattanooga. I have always wanted to know how this was handled. The way the interchange track between Southern and TA&G was arranged, I would imagine that the Pelican would have needed to back or to have been pulled backward by a switch engine all the way to Gadsden via the old Rome to Attala line. Once they were oriented on TA&G tracks at Gadsden, I assume they would run TA&G to Alton Park (South Chattanooga) and then the Chattanooga Belt to Shipp Yard and the AGS mainline. It seems that on the southbound trip, there would need to be a switch engine to drag the Pelican back to Attalla. Does anyone have any knowledge of these diversions or an idea how they may have been handled between Attalla and Gadsden

-- Warren D. Stephens (wdstephens@prodigy.net), February 09, 2004.