Year: 2021
There are a few (train) places I often think about as spring approaches each year as I’ve seen pictures in magazines and websites. First is the southeaster part of Kentucky and western Virginia, on L&N’s Cumberland Valley Sub. There’s a spot between Big Stone Gap and Appalachia, VA, where the former Southern crossed over the L&N. Before this small portion of the L&N was relocated to share rails with the Southern, it dashed into a tunnel known as Callahan’s Nose Tunnel (pictured at left) and continued a parallel route to the SR into Appalachia. The roadbed, tunnel and bridge across Hwy 23 and the Powell River are now an active Rails to Trails path.
Hagen’s Switchback is another location on my bucket list for a visit some spring. What a marvel, the only operating Class 1 mainline switchback in use and it was never meant to be a permanent solution. Relatively new, the long tunnel from the Kentucky side following the Martins’s Fork of the Cumberland River, pierces through over a mile before exiting on the south side of the mountain where the trains reverse westward up the wye to the old CV line (now gone), then pulls ahead eastward. South tail tracks are too short to hold a regular train so they have 3 holding tracks if needed.
My hope is to visit these locations when the redbuds are in bloom. I hear they cover the sides of the hills. I hope you can get out and visit either your favorite rail fanning spots or find a couple of new ones. Either way, be safe, stay off the tracks, and enjoy the re-awakening of nature as we move into a new spring season!
Enjoy! – Bill Thomas, Editor
I went out looking for a military train that was south bound and I ran out of light. I did manage to get a north bound mixed freight and a south bound coal train. – Photography by Bill Farrell
Steve Gentry spotted this WFRX GP15 March 9, 2021, it was sitting on the site of the old L&N station in Evansville. The old L&N station was located on Fulton Ave close to Ohio Street. It has a fresh coat of paint. The track it was sitting on services a couple of downtown Evansville locations. Apparently 560 is being assigned switching duties at Berry Plastics in Evansville.
The Oriental Limited is slowly easing by No. 5012, having just exited the original Great Northern Cascade Tunnel in Washington State. Cameras were poised to record the last westbound train over the old snowshed route. But, instead of a happy group of tourists on the back platform of the observation car there was a solitary passenger bundled up against the chill.
This unhappy circumstance was remedied by replacing the lone passenger (by photo retouching) with Wenatchee’s Apple Festival Queen and her Ladies in Waiting before release to the press. The next westbound Oriental Limited will pass through the newly completed 7.79 miles tunnel, several hundred feet below. That tunnel opened on January 12, 1929.
The Oriental Limited was the Great Northern’s premium passenger train prior to introducing the streamlined Empire Builder in 1947. And you thought photo-shopping and spin-control was something new…!
Submitted by Gary Ostlund. – Pix’s by Lee Pickett, Index, WA ., as seen in Charles & Dorothy Woods book: Great Northern Railway a Pictorial Study
My favorite toy! Year 2000, 100th Anniversary Lionel train set. Santa Fe, 11 cars: four engines and 7 passenger cars. O-Gauge, 0-31 minimum radius, set length 165” (13’, 9”). Longest train set Lionel had ever made at the time. – Bill Corum
Ricky Bivins shot all but one of these from his home in Mortons Gap, KY
President Keith Kittinger adds a helix to his HO scale model railroad. This route will lead to the new Morganfield Branch.
An employee of the L&N Railroad in Paducah, Roy was instrumental in fighting the abandonment of the L&N trackage between Paducah and Murray. In 1981, he incorporated the Western Kentucky Railroad Company in an attempt to purchase the line. Although negotiations were unsuccessful, his efforts delayed abandonment and gave time for Jack Dunigan to create the J&J Railroad from Hardin to Murray. – Submitted by Chris Dees
Madisonville. Zach quickly re-gifted the transit to his nephew by mail. I think that made his Christmas!
Have you ever imagined “what might have been” if certain proposed railroad lines had
been built, or if routes had been slightly altered to go to City A versus City B? On-line and inperson
research at libraries can shed some very interesting stories of would-be rail barons
that failed to reach their dreams of pushing steel rails into America’s new frontier during the
1800s and 1900s. Even as late as 1965, Illinois Central’s Kentucky Division Track Profile
contained a proposed line from Providence to Dawson Springs.
An 1891 map of Kentucky’s then current and proposed rail lines available through the
Library of Congress’ website shows another railroad closer to the Pennyrile Region. This line,
the proposed Henderson & State Line Railroad, was to run from Henderson southeast toward
Bowling Green and Scottsville via Hartford. Mr. S.K. Sneed of Henderson was the H&SL’s
president and tried to obtain funding through bond issuances in Henderson in 1899 to
construct his railroad “from the foot of the L&N’s Ohio River bridge”. Unfortunately, the H&SL
had some stiff competition with the LH&StL between Henderson and Owensboro, and the
O&N between Owensboro and Russellville.
A March 28, 1899 Owensboro Messenger news article clearly stated “if the success of
the Henderson & State Line depends on aid from Henderson, it will never be built.”
Two map segments showing proposed Henderson & State Line Railroad (H&SL).
1st Place West Kentucky Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society Photo Contest – KCS units lead an ethanol train south, at the location known as Monarch, where they duck under the P&L railway line, on the Henderson Subdivision at Madisonville, Ky on January 30th, 2021. – Photo by Ricky Bivins 
2nd Place West Kentucky Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society Photo Contest – January 31, 2021: C841 heads south as it passes the Lothair intermediates just outside of Hazard, KY. – Photo by Cooper Smith 
3rd Place West Kentucky Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society Photo Contest -Having dropped off his train of Autoracks at the Mixing Center in Shelbyville, KY, NS #23J rolls westbound towards the yard at Louisville on the “best” Snow Day of 2021. #23J is run as a extra Autorack Train on January 28, 2021. – Photo by Bill Grady 
Honorable Mention – West Kentucky Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society Photo Contest – CSX locomotive 912 on the lead of a five locomotive lash up pulling a mixed freight south at Caskey Lane in Hopkinsville, Kentucky on the Henderson Subdivision. – Photo by William Farrell
CSX locomotive 6972 sitting at ideal in Caskey Yard, ready to pull a train of covered hoppers north bound. – Photo by William Farrell 
With Reitz High School looming in the background, CSX Q501-23 is winding his way south to the #1 Main in the Evansville Terminal. Due to congestion at Evansville, Q501 will tie down well south of Howell Yard and will do his work later in the evening, on January 23, 2021. – Photo by Bill Grady 
January 31, 2021: C841 departs Hazard, KY over the river and heads south towards Shelby, KY where it?ll drop off the empties. – Photo by Cooper Smith 
A North bound CSX at Mortons Gap, Ky, heads north on the Henderson subdivision against the early morning sun on January 30, 2021. – Photo by Ricky Bivins
