Chattanooga Choo Choo

Chattanooga Choo Choo clip
from Sun Valley Serenade

On May 17, 1941, a new passenger train called "The Tennessean", jointly-operated by the Norfolk and Western Railway (N&W) and the Southern Railway (SR), went into service. The route ran all the way from Washington, DC, to Memphis passing through many towns and cities along the way, including Knoxville, Chattanooga, and Sheffield/Tuscumbia, Alabama. The "Tennessean" was a "streamliner" designed by industrial designer Otto Kuhler and featured stainless steel clad Pullman coaches. It was an instant success.

That same year the Glenn Miller Orchestra recorded an arrangement of a song by Harry Warren (music) and Mack Gordon (lyrics) which was featured in the film Sun Valley Serenade and released on August 21. The film was a big hit, as was the song, which received an Academy Award nomination.

I was introduced to swing music at an early age. In fact, for the first few years of my life it was the only form of music I knew existed. It flowed out of our radio every day like water from a spring. My mom's favorite band leaders were Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey. Our next door neighbor Jim Cole, a trumpet player from Brooklin, New York, favored Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Woody Herman, and Artie Shaw.

Among my possessions is a small torn photograph of my mother with the inscription "1941" on the upper left hand corner. On the back, written in my mother's hand are the words "Claudia, Chattanooga, age 15". In the photo she is wearing a light, summer weight blouse embroidered with Mexican imagery including a man in a very large sombrero.

I cannot prove it, but I think it is very likely that my mother made the trip to Chattanooga in 1941 inspired, at least in part, by the inauguration of the new "Tennessean" train service to Chattanooga as romanticized by her favorite swing band. After viewing the "Chattanooga Choo Choo" segment from the film, what young girl with a hankering to see the world wouldn't want to take a ride in a gleaming Pullman coach and see what lay beyond the cotton fields of home.