- Freight Railroad Employees: 3,106
- Freight Railroads: 27
- Freight Rail Mileage: 2,642
- Trucks off the Road: It would have taken 10.2 million trucks to handle the freight that moved by rail in Tennessee in 2024.
Freight Rail in Tennessee
What Moves by Rail
2025 Data
Originated in Tennessee
| Commodity | Million Tons | Units |
| Stone & clay products | 1.9 | 18,300 |
| Chemicals | 1.9 | 20,300 |
| Food products | 1.1 | 11,900 |
| Pulp & paper | 0.9 | 11,500 |
| Transportation equip. | 0.8 | 33,000 |
| All other carloads | 3.0 | 32,900 |
| Intermodal | 5.4 | 379,800 |
| TOTAL | 14.9M | 507,700 |
Terminated in Tennessee
| Commodity | Million Tons | Units |
| Chemicals | 4.7 | 49,600 |
| Farm products | 3.0 | 28,600 |
| Coal | 2.9 | 26,100 |
| Food products | 2.7 | 27,900 |
| Stone & clay products | 1.2 | 11,900 |
| All other carloads | 5.9 | 74,300 |
| Intermodal | 4.9 | 388,100 |
| TOTAL | 25.3M | 606,500 |
Carriers Operating in Tennessee
Note: In the list of railroads, mileage includes trackage rights. For Class I railroads, mileage is from the railroads’ R-1 reports to the STB. For short lines, mileage is an AAR estimate based on a variety of sources. The map shows rail lines whose primary owner is a freight railroad or Amtrak. The owner may not be the only operator of the line. The map is based on the FRA’s North American Rail Network (NARN) dataset. Low-mileage short lines may not be labelled on the map. Information current as of mid-2026. Please report any updates, errors, or omissions to policy@aar.org.
Class I Railroad Mileage
| BNSF Railway | 137 |
| Canadian National Railway | 157 |
| CPKC | 5 |
| CSX Transportation | 975 |
| Norfolk Southern Railway | 719 |
| Union Pacific Railroad | 17 |
Short Line Railroads
| Caney Fork and Western Railroad | 61 |
| Chattooga & Chickamauga Railway | 1 |
| East Tennessee Railway | 5 |
| Grenada Railroad | 10 |
| Knoxville & Holston River Railroad | 26 |
| Knoxville and Cumberland Gap Railroad | 128 |
| KWT Railway | 80 |
| Mississippi Central Railroad | 4 |
| R. J. Corman Railroad – Memphis Line | 36 |
| R. J. Corman Railroad – Tennessee Terminal | 33 |
| R.J. Corman Railroad – Nashville & Eastern Line | 145 |
| R.J. Corman Railroad – Nashville & Western Line | 20 |
| Sequatchie Valley Switching Co. | 8 |
| Smoky Ridge Railroad | 7 |
| South Central Tennessee Railroad | 52 |
| Tennessee Southern Railroad | 119 |
| Tennken Railroad | 43 |
| Union City Terminal Railroad | 8 |
| Walking Horse Railroad | 8 |
| West Memphis Base Railroad | 3 |
| West Tennessee Railroad | 178 |
Contacts in Tennessee
Government-affairs leads for the railroads operating in the state.
Norfolk Southern
Elizabeth Kennedy Lawlor
Resident VP, Government Relations
Elizabeth.Lawlor@nscorp.com
Note: Data are for 2025 except rail employment and truck equivalents, which are 2024. Total state mileage excludes trackage rights. Data are AAR estimates based on information from various sources.