Day trips from Nashville · Town
Lookout Mountain Incline Railway
133 miles from downtown Nashville · about 2 hours
St. Elmo and Lookout Mountain, Chattanooga, TN
The Incline Railway has been carrying passengers up the side of Lookout Mountain since 1895 on a grade that reaches nearly seventy-three percent near the top, which makes it one of the steepest passenger railways anywhere. The upper station opens onto the brow a short walk from Point Park.
- Lower station
- 3917 St. Elmo Avenue, Chattanooga
- Upper station
- 827 East Brow Road, Lookout Mountain
- Fares
- Adults and seniors $24.99, children 3 to 12 $12.99, under 2 free
- Hours
- Daily 9am to 7pm in season, last departure 40 minutes before close
Permits, fees and access
Wheelchair accessible. Groups of twenty or more pay a reduced round-trip rate. Note that a wildfire on Lookout Mountain in December 2024 shut the railway for a period and it has since been restored and reopened, so any article telling you it is closed is out of date.
One thing to know first
Parking at the lower station fills on summer weekends and the surrounding St. Elmo streets are residential and tight. The ride up is the attraction; there is not much at the upper station except the view and the walk to Point Park, so plan what you are doing at the top before you go.
Access rules, fees and closures verified August 15, 2026 against the agency that manages this place. They change, sometimes without notice. Check before you drive.
I keep this list because it is genuinely how people spend weekends here, and because almost every guide to it is out of date. If you are weighing a move to Middle Tennessee and want to know which part of it puts you closest to the things you actually like, ask me. No pitch.