ocated east of Chattanooga, Tennessee, the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum inhabits former Southern Railway property and right-of-way, featuring a 3-mile mainline that penetrates Chattanooga's famous Missionary Ridge through a nearly thousand-foot tunnel. TVRM trains — such as the Missionary Ridge Local and the Evening Ridge Runner — depart from the Grand Junction depot and run the museum mainline multiple times each day during the operating season. At the the turnaround point at the East Chattanooga depot, riders are given tours of an operating roundtable and Soule Shops: the museum's heavy maintenance and renovation facility named for a TVRM co-founder. At both ends of the museum mainline, numerous locomotives and rolling stock are on display in various states of restoration. Near Grand Junction depot, an exhibit building features many displays interpreting railroad history in general and the Southern Railway's story in particular.

Frequent excursions offsite take place throughout the year over three segments of railroad. The former Southern Railway mainline leaves museum property and travels south along Holtzclaw Avenue, connecting TVRM to other railroads in downtown Chattanooga. This spur hosts evening dinner trains and other offsite excursions, including Summerville Steam Specials. These trips leave Chattanooga proper and utilize the Chattooga & Chickamauga Railway south to Summerville, Georgia, along the former Central of Georgia mainline, where a turntable and depot provide the midpoint for daylong specials. On its Chattanooga lines, TVRM handles occasional freight service for customers through a subsidiary known as Tyner Terminal Railway Company and on the East Chattanooga Belt Railway. Finally, TVRM operates Hiawassee Loop trains over a 50 mile segment of former Louisville & Nashville mainline known as the Hook and Eye Route, from Etowah to Copperhill, Tennessee.

Over the decades, TVRM has been home to a number of well known excursion steam locomotives, including Southern Railway #4501, #630, and #722. A great variety of other equipment help tell the story of railroading in the region. In the fall of 2021, Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum celebrated its 60th anniversary as the premier operating railroad museum of the southeast. As one tourist guide notes, "If you were to take a steam railroad from the 1920s, shrink it, and preserve it, you'd have the Tennessee Valley Railroad."