Great Smoky Mountains Railroad: The Tuck River Route

On a cool January 17th, 2026, a visit was in order to the famous Southern Railway Murphy Branch, now the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad. On this day, the popular tourist railroad was operating their Tuckasegee River Excursion between their headquarters in Bryson City and the eastern end of their trackage in Dillsboro, 16 miles away. The train consisted of 10 passenger cars and four cabooses. Two of the cabs are rented out by private groups, one serves as the onboard concession stand, and one is a generator car. The train was powered on the east end by GP38-2 No. 2335, originally built for the St. Louis-San Francisco Railroad (Frisco) in 1972 as their No. 664, and on the west end by GP9 No. 1755, built in 1956 for the Southern Pacific Railroad as No. 5666. With 417 passengers on board (not bad at all for a Saturday in January), we follow the train from Bryson City to Dillsboro and return.