The GSMR operates excursion trains on the former Southern Railway's Murphy Branch between Dillsboro and Nantahala, North Carolina.

The GSMR is one of the most popular tourist railroads in the United States, carrying 200,000 passengers each year.

With help of a team of investors, the MacNeils secured the lease only 48 hours before the Norfolk Southern would be dispatching work trains to the Murphy Branch to begin dismantling the track.

[2] The full tourist route originally operated further west to Andrews and Murphy, North Carolina.

[3][4] In late 1999, the MacNeills sold the GSMR property to the American Heritage Railways, the owners of the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad (D&SNG) in Colorado.

The GSMR eventually would become one of the most popular tourist railroads in the United States with about 200,000 passengers each year.

[6] In 2004, GSMR debuted its "Polar Express" train ride, based on the newly released movie and licensed through Warner Brothers.

This ride has been an annual major economy boost for the railroad and the town of Bryson City.

[7] In 2012, the GSMR made an agreement with Swain County of North Carolina donating $700,000 to construct a new steam locomotive workshop for the restoration of No.

Ultimately, the railroad deemed the locomotive's planned move too costly and instead sold it to the Discovery Park of America[15] in Union City, Tennessee.

In 1990, the GSMR considered importing a newly-built China Railways SY steam locomotive for use in their operations, but for unknown reasons, they never placed an order.

1702 steam locomotive was featured in the 1966 film, This Property Is Condemned, starring Natalie Wood, Robert Redford, and Charles Bronson.

[17] The famous train wreck scene in the 1993 Warner Brothers blockbuster movie The Fugitive starring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones was filmed in Dillsboro along the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad.

[21] The Great Smoky Mountains Railroad was used in the filming of 1996 Warner Brothers comedy My Fellow Americans starring Jack Lemmon and James Garner; they stumble onto a charter train full of UNC-Chapel Hill fans headed for the NCAA Final Four.