"Chattanooga Choo Choo" was a big-band Glenn Miller swing song featured in the 1941 movie Sun Valley Serenade, which starred amongst others Milton Berle and Joan Davis. Released on the RCA Victor label, the record became the first to be certified a gold disc on February 10, 1942, for sales of 1,200,000.

The inspiration for the song was a small, wood-burning steam locomotive belonging to the Cincinnati Southern Railroad. From 1880, most trains bound for America's South passed through the southeastern Tennessee city of Chattanooga, often on to the super-hub of Atlanta. The Chattanooga Choo Choo did not refer to any particular train, though some have incorrectly asserted that it referred to Louisville and Nashville's Dixie Flyer or the Southern Railway's Crescent Limited. (It should be noted that was impossible to travel from New York to Chattanooga without changing trains at least twice.)

Today, one of the original trains has pride of place in Chattanooga's former Terminal Station. The station was saved from demolition after the withdrawl of passenger railway service in the 1970s, and it is now part of a 30 acre (12 hectare) resort complex, including the Choo-Choo Holiday Inn and numerous historical railway exhibits. For a premium, guests can stay in half of a restored passenger railway car. The city's other historic station, Union Station, was destroyed in 1973 for another development, although parts of it pre-dated the American Civil War.

The reputation given to the city by the song also lent itself to making Chattanooga the home of the National Model Railroad Association.

External link

• Choo Choo official website (http://www.choochoo.com/)