The East Tennessee & Western North Carolina Railroad , affectionately called the "Tweetsie" as a verbal acronym of its initials (ET&WNC) but also in reference to the sound of its steam whistles, was a primarily narrow gauge railroad established in 1866 for the purpose of serving the mines at Cranberry, North Carolina. The narrow gauge portion of the ET&WNC was abandoned in 1950. The segment of the line from Johnson City to Elizabethton, Tennessee, operated as East Tennessee Railway until 2003. In 2012 the rails and ties were removed to make way for a rail-trail. This trail was named the Tweetsie Trail. History The East Tennessee & Western North Carolina Transportation Company was chartered by the Tennessee General Assembly on May 24, 1866. Lack of financial backing led to the venture's failure, and the railroad was abandoned in 1874. The Cranberry Iron Company acquired the line between 1876 and 1879, and designated the railroad one of its subsidiaries. The initial segment through the Appalachian Mountains from Johnson City to Hampton, Tennessee via Elizabethton was completed on August 22, 1881, by Pennsylvania-based financier Ario Pardee, and the technical expertise of Thomas Matson (the noted railway engineer); a line extension to Cranberry opened on July 3, 1882. Soon dubbed by mountain residents as the "Railway with a Heart" as railroad personnel often performed errands for the locals (and even allowed passengers to ride for free during the Great Depression), its tickets were even validated with a heart-shaped punch. The ET&WNC had five Baldwin Locomotive Works Ten Wheelers: #9 (1911), #10 (1916), #11 (1916), #12 (1917), and #14 (1919). All the engines were painted black, but Clarence Hobbs chose to paint the engines green to resemble the Southern Railway standard gauge engines. In the midst of WWII, passenger service rapidly declined to make it unprofitable to run a full passenger train every day. The ET&WNC used car 15, which was a passenger car equipped with both a post office and baggage compartment. Behind car 15 was either one or two of the railroad's three piggyback flat cars. The ET&WNC's passenger station was next to the trucking depot, while the railyard was another mile down the line. In order to save time, crews picked up car 15 before picking up the piggyback flat cars. The ET&WNC hauled iron ore from the Cranberry mines, pig iron from the local forge, and lumber from the forests