by Wallace Henderson

       In 2008, R.J. Corman purchased QJ 2-10-2 #7040 from China, built in 1986. The locomotive was renumbered 2008 and is kept in Lexington on Corman’s Central Kentucky Lines (ex-L&N Winchester to Anchorage with CSX trackage rights into Louisville plus a couple of short branch lines. This includes the first railroad in Kentucky: Lexington thru Midway to Frankfort.) This locomotive is rarely operated and CSX will not allow it to run into Louisville. So when I learned that it would be at a festival in Midway on September 15th, I made plans to drive up to see it and asked former chapter member Cliff Downey to go along.

After a early morning departure we arrived in Midway to find the town full of people and the locomotive quietly steaming away on the mainline (no sidings there). There were steps up to the cab for visits and the locomotive looked very handsome with the Corman modifications.

After lunch at one of the many vendors, we drove into Lexington to visit the new Corman locomotive facilities and yard. Overlooking these on the northeast side is a display of two former Helm SD40M-3 “shells” (no prime movers) rebuilt from ACL/SCL SD45s plus two cabooses. To the east the former L&N yard is now a parking lot for Rupp Arena while the new well ballasted Corman yard is the best looking yard I’ve ever seen. In the distance is the NS former Southern Railway mainline overpass. Around the locomotive facility we found a new Corman RailPower RP1500BD switcher, a GP9, a ex-D&RGW SD40T-2 tunnel motor, five GP38s and three GP-16s.

Leaving Lexington, we stopped at the Bluegrass RR Museum outside Versailles. Their tourist train had already left on the ride west to, but not across (the track has been removed) Young’s High Bridge over the Kentucky River, so we looked at the equipment sitting around which included a Alco MRS-1, a Fairbanks-Morse H12-44, a Monon caboose and a couple of US Army long boxcars. This was a long, sunny, but very rewarding day.