Class I Hotel in Chattanooga - No Public

No tourists allowed at new 40,000-square-foot hotel in Chattanooga

An interesting concept!

There's a full-blown two-story hotel under construction on Amnicola Highway, but don't try to book a room just yet.

The 40,000-square-foot building is slated to hold 102 guests, and plans call for exercise facilities, meeting rooms and a common area. An adjacent 24-hour diner will seat 50 customers and serve up "anything you can possibly imagine for breakfast," said Cori Catlett, vice president at Motel Sleepers Inc.

But the $5 million hotel won't appear on Expedia or in tourist brochures. It's for the exclusive use of railroad employees, Catlett said.

"What our company does is we provide lodging to Class 1 railroads throughout the U.S.," Catlett said.

Any others out there like this? This one is being built for NS.

NS started building hotel style dorms in 07. The first to be built in the new style is located in Bellevue OH. In 2010 one was built in Somerset ky

Oak Tree Inns and their associated Penny's Diner are primarily for railroad train crews. (Not all locations have the diner.) They are open to the public. If you look up their locations on their websites, almost all are located at a UP crew change location. There are a few that appear to be BNSF points, although those could be serving UP crews who run trains via trackage rights.

There are also a few located way east of where UP operates. I wouldn't be surprised if they are crew change locations for NS or CSX.

JLH