STEAM Locomotive Shop

Tweetsie's Steam Locomotive Shop keeps Tweetsie and others chugging along!

For locomotive rebuild, restoration, and train parts:

(Tweetsie Railroad is the official source for Crown Locomotive Parts)
Train Shop Phone 1-828-264-0944
Train Shop Fax 1-828-264-0900

Though few Tweetsie guests ever visit the Tweetsie Railroad Steam Locomotive Shop, it serves a vital function for the park by keeping Tweetsie's pair of vintage locomotives operational every day. But it is also a facility where a dying art is being preserved, keeping alive the romance of steam-powered locomotives.

The shop repairs steam trains belonging to favorite tourist destinations like Dollywood, Busch Gardens, Callaway Gardens, the North Carolina Transportation Museum at Spencer Shops and the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum. Repairs can be as minor as fixing a steam valve, or as major as a complete frame-up locomotive rebuild.

The growing demand for Tweetsie's repair services comes in part because of the diminishing number of steam engine restoration facilities still in existence today. The last steam engine was manufactured in the l950's as coal and oil power gave way to the more efficient diesel-electric engines.

"A complete overhaul on a narrow-gauge steam locomotive can require anywhere from 6 months to a year", says Frank Aldridge, Tweetsie's Vice President of Engineering. Aldridge has spent over 30 years working on train repairs.

"Every single part must be totally disassembled, cleaned, and either repaired or replaced," Aldridge says of the hundreds of interlocking components of the massive mechanical marvels, which can weigh in at 65 tons or more.

The Steam Locomotive Shop was originally started by Frank Coffey, a Master Mechanic who helped deliver Tweetsie's revered Number 12 engine to its current Blowing Rock home in 1957. Coffey died in 1999, but left his legacy in the form of new generations of steam locomotive mechanics who learned their craft from him.

Since it's virtually impossible to find replacement parts, Tweetsie's machinists and welders must manufacture their own. Castings are made in a nearby foundry and Tweetsie's staff and machine tools are used to cut and produce the needed replacement parts. The train repair operations moved into a new 5,000-square-foot facility in 1997. A separate paint room is capacious enough to accommodate an entire locomotive and tender, and the finished product rolls out with jewel-like quality.

Tweetsie's crew keeps Number 12 and the Number 190 "Yukon Queen" in top running order for the flood of visitors annually to Tweetsie. Every trip is a new challenge for the engineer and fireman who operate the locomotives, which consume 5,000 gallons of water and four tons of coal each and every day. Though it is nearly 90 years old and listed in the National Register of Historic Places, Number 12 chugs its way through hundreds of trips every season. The engines need a complete overhaul every ten to fifteen years. In 1999, a total restoration of Number 12 brought it to better-than-new condition. A complete restoration of the No. 190 was completed in the spring of 2000.

During our annual Railfan Weekend each September, Railfans who purchase a weekend pass can tour this unique facility and see the veteran shop crew preserve the art of steam locomotive repair and restoration.