The Nashville and Eastern Railroad is a shortline railroad which administers of track between Nashville and Monterey, Tennessee, of which are currently operational. The company is based in Lebanon, Tennessee.
Operations
The railroad currently extends to Monterey, where it serves a large sand mining operation. The railroad provides freight shipping services to more than 30 companies. It also runs occasional passenger excursion trains from Nashville to Cookeville or Watertown in cooperation with the Tennessee Central Railway Museum in Nashville.
The railroad is the home of the WeGo Star commuter rail service between Nashville and Lebanon. Service began on September 18, 2006. The service is operated by the Regional Transportation Authority, Nashville's public transportation agency.
NERR has a subsidiary, the Nashville & Western Railroad Corp. , that operates between Nashville and Ashland City on the former western end of the Tennessee Central.
History The Nashville and Eastern was formed in the 1980s to reestablish freight service from Nashville to Lebanon and points east. The tracks that it operates were originally operated by the Tennessee Central Railway, which went out of business in 1968.
On November 5, 2018, R.J. Corman Railroad Group announced that it had finalized an agreement to acquire both NERR and NWR as well as Transit Solution Group, operator of the WeGo Star commuter trains. Pending regulatory approval, R. J. Corman was expected to take over operations in January 2019.
Rolling stock The Nashville & Eastern currently has 2-4 B40-8Ws, 2 SD70Ms indefinitely, and up to 3 B40-8s and 1 LMX B40-8 in storage.
Former rolling stock includes U30B 'U-Boats', an unknown amount of CF7s, unknown amount of ALCO RSD-12, a few ALCO Century 420s, and recreational EMD E-units, which have not been seen, nor recorded for a few years. Note: It is also unknown if the B40-8s and B39-8Es of the railroad are active, with the last recorded sometime around 2023-2025, and 1-2 EMD SD40-2s were documented from 2023-2024. They have either gone to other short lines owned by the RJ Corman or have been stored at the yard in Lebanon. Note: There may be more locomotives that have not been documented or are not known.
All N&E locomotives have been acquired by a variety of different means. B39-8Es and B40-8s were acquired from the CSX, and the B40-8Ws and early B30-7s were acquired from the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway and BNSF Railway.
References