Whistle Blows on Nashville Steam Engine for the First Time Since 1952

For seven years, the thought of once again hearing the whistle blow on Engine 576 has motivated the volunteers working to restore it. On July 15, they heard it for the first time — to a great ovation. 

The sound of the train’s whistle reverberates through your chest. It’s something straight out of a classic Western — or from the steam train at Dollywood.

But Engine 576, which was created in 1942 and retired in 1952, is the only one of its exact kind still in existence, its 19 siblings having been scrapped in the intervening years. Nashville kept its model in Centennial Park for decades before the Nashville Steam Preservation Society set out to restore it in 2019. 

Since then, the society has raised more than $3 million for restoration work, with a goal of raising $250,000 to $500,000 more to finish its rollout. When completed, the engine will operate on the same tracks as the Nashville-to-Lebanon WeGo Star and the excursion train run by the Tennessee Central Railway Museum. The group will partner with the museum to pull its fleet of 1950s passenger cars — hopefully by the end of 2027. 

“This is a part of the city’s history that is really brushed under the rug, and we really want to highlight and bring to the forefront,” says Joey Bryan, a spokesperson for the Nashville Steam Preservation Society. “People come here for the music, but what inspired that music back in the day was the sounds and rhythms of the steam locomotive that we’re bringing back to life here today.

“It really just goes hand in hand with the culture and the identity of the city to have this Nashville native brought back here,” Bryan continues, referencing Engine 576.

Stephen Hook, shop foreman for the society, has been working on the train full time for six years. He was also one of the people who stayed all night July 15 to periodically shovel coal into the engine’s boiler, which had not seen a fire in 74 years. Hook says while there are a few items to address, the engine has run exceptionally well, especially considering its long retirement. 

“You do something for so long, you just get used to it being this static thing forever, and then all of a sudden, in the course of two days, it’s gone from a piece of metal to an actual breathing machine,” he says. “It’s kind of hard to believe still.”

Most Tennesseans in their 20s, like Hook, don’t have memories of riding trains locally — and not many folks who worked on a steam engine in the 1950s are still around. Hook learned from other preservationists and from visits to steam engines that are in operation today. He started with the Nashville Steam Preservation Society as a tween, volunteering on the weekends there. Even before that, he played on Engine 576 in Centennial Park as a kid. 

“I remember sitting up there in the window and saying, ‘I think it’d be pretty darn cool to run this thing,’” he says. “Looking back on it, I’m not sure how much I thought it was going to take, but it wasn’t this much. It’s been worth it. It’s been worth it the whole time.”