Tweetsie Country: The East Tennessee and Western North Carolina Railroad

by Mallory Hope Ferrell

Tweetsie Country can be roughly defined as being bound on the north by the Great Depression, on the east by the state of North Carolina, on the west by Tennessee, and on the south by hope and determination. Here is all the color and charm of the Tweetsie, with its broad gauge aspirations on a narrow gauge budget. It is the story of a unique little railroad that traveled the Blue Ridge country and won the hearts of those who lived there. This handsome pictorial history includes 250 outstanding photographs, plus maps, scale drawings, and three full-color paintings by Mike Pearsall and Casey Holtzinger.

219 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1991

Reviews

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tweetsie Country by Mallory Hope Ferrell

Tweetsie Country is a handsome pictorial history of the East Tennessee & Western North Carolina Railroad. ET&WNC, born in the Blue Ridge Mountain country in the 1880s reflects for us today the color and charm of the steam era. Tweetsie Country is the story of the little railroad that could, that over came physical obstacles and the Great Depression to travel the Blue Ridge country bringing the outside world to the mountain folk of east Tennessee and western North Carolina.

While telling the colorful history of the East Tennessee & Western North Carolina Railroad, this book is an indispensable reference for rail fans or modelers. It contains many illustrations of the line, rolling stock and locomotives. This is a fun, informative and thoroughly useful book.

[Aaron Shipman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very good book. In it's short length, it manages to tell the story of the narrow gauge railroad very well and succinctly. There is very little information on the operations of the road though. The narrative moves at a fast pace and one could read the book in a day, which I did, and then spend months looking at the photographs. For people wishing to make a model railroad, there are a few serviceable maps and a couple of drawings of Freight and passenger cars. This is a very good introduction on the line and should whet the appetite of anyone wanting more information about the road than the Wikipedia entry offers.

[Ruppert Baird · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ferrell's skill at taking a mundane corporate history and turning into a folksy, down-home story is rare. And it is showcased here in 'Tweetsie Country,' a history of the famed Tweetsie Railroad and the Appalachian counties that it affected.
Perhaps the book's best line signifying the impact this company had on the people and area was that of the Boone, NC mayor who stated that before the railroad, the only way to get to Boone was to be born there.
The Tweetsie today still exists at it's western terminus in the guise of the East Tennessee Railway, and at the Tweetsie Railroad theme park.