The subject just keeps coming up: Will there, or should there, ever be a “real” Chattanooga Choo-Choo between Chattanooga and Atlanta (in addition to the famed but fictional “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” that Glenn Miller’s orchestra made popular decades ago)?
The Georgia Department of Transportation guesstimates a high-speed Atlanta-Chattanooga train could attract between 2.6 million and 4 million passengers a year.
No doubt it would be convenient for some. But would it pay? Ah, that’s the question. Transportation authorities, political leaders — and some dreamers — keep asking that intriguing question.
We’ll keep singing the song and asking the question. But an answer may come when some adventurous people more thoroughly calculate the financial prospects over the next few years as population and highway traffic grow.
Still, wouldn’t a “real” Chattanooga Choo-Choo be fun?