A visual timeline connects Johnny Cash’s 1974 television special Ridin’ the Rails with the present-day legacy of Southern Railway 4501. Top left, Cash performs beside the massive steam locomotive during filming of the ABC special. Top right, John Carter Cash visits the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum with family and TVRM staff, sitting aboard the same historic equipment nearly 50 years later. Bottom left, archival footage shows Cash riding in the cab of Southern 4501. Bottom right, the fully restored 1911 Baldwin-built locomotive draws crowds during a modern-day Steam into Summerville excursion, a signature event that most recently brought the engine to Summerville, Georgia, on November 11, 2025.

The same steam locomotive that regularly thunders into Summerville for TVRM’s popular Steam into Summerville railroad days — Southern Railway 4501 — is drawing attention again after a weekend visit this past Saturday in Chattanooga from John Carter Cash, son of Johnny and June Carter Cash. The historic engine, which most recently visited Summerville on November 11, 2025, remains one of the most recognizable operating steam locomotives in the country and continues to bring rail history to life for local riders and visiting railfans alike.

The moment carried extra meaning because Southern 4501 also connects to a major piece of music-and-railroad nostalgia: Johnny Cash’s 1974 ABC television special, Ridin’ the Rails: The Great American Train Story. The program blended narration, reenactments, and performances to explore America’s railroad story from the age of steam into the diesel era, using music and historic imagery to bring railroading’s past to the screen.

Nearly 50 years later, that history felt personal again when John Carter Cash visited the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum (TVRM) in Chattanooga with his family — and found himself revisiting a memory from childhood.

Reflecting on the surprise connection, Cash shared:

“Wow. What a day. We stopped at the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum with Ana Cristina and our two younger children here in Chattanooga, and I was surprised to find myself sitting in the same train I rode with my father back in 1974 during the Ridin’ the Rails television show. Thank you to everyone there for such a meaningful day.”

A steam engine with a long and storied journey

Southern Railway 4501 is no ordinary locomotive. Built in 1911 by Baldwin Locomotive Works and designed as a 2-8-2 “Mikado,” the engine helped popularize a steam locomotive configuration that would be replicated across American railroads. After years of service through parts of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Indiana, it was sold in 1948 to the Kentucky & Tennessee Railway, where it worked in the mountains of eastern Kentucky for years before preservation efforts changed its destiny.

The locomotive’s modern legacy took shape in the early 1960s when future TVRM founders Robert Soule and Paul Merriman discovered it while documenting remaining steam operations in the East. Acquired and preserved, 4501 evolved from an overlooked working engine into one of the most traveled, photographed, and celebrated steam locomotives in the world — and later became a mainstay of the Southern Railway (and Norfolk Southern) steam excursion era. Today, it is recognized for its cultural and historical importance, including listing on the National Register of Historic Places.

The heart of Steam into Summerville

For many in Northwest Georgia, Southern 4501 isn’t just a museum piece — it’s a living, breathing hometown event. The locomotive is the featured power for TVRM’s Steam into Summerville excursions, a full-day trip departing from Chattanooga and traveling through scenic North Georgia before arriving in Summerville, Georgia, for a layover at the historic depot.

The experience is built for both families and serious railfans: classic passenger cars, onboard narration, and the unforgettable sound and motion of an operating steam engine. And for locals, the arrival of 4501 has become a signature moment — a rolling reminder of the era when steam still ruled the rails.

Southern 4501’s most recent trip into Summerville came on November 11, 2025, continuing a tradition that ties the region’s present-day tourism and community pride to a century-old machine that still does what it was built to do: move people, tell stories, and command attention.

Still running, still inspiring

Although the locomotive retired in 1999 due to rising maintenance costs, it returned to service after a major restoration that brought it back for modern-era operations. Its continued use today is sustained through ticket sales, volunteer work, and supporter donations — efforts that keep 4501 operating not as a static exhibit, but as an active piece of history.

From a 1974 television moment with Johnny Cash to the modern-day excitement of Steam into Summerville, Southern Railway 4501 continues to connect generations — and each time it rolls into Summerville, it proves that the steam era isn’t just something to read about. In North Georgia, it’s something you can still hear coming down the tracks.