By Chris Dees, Chapter Member       

Many of you in the Madisonville area might recall the Western Kentucky Railway, created in 1995 to take over operation of the remnants of the former Tradewater Railway. With reporting marks of WKRL, the Western Kentucky Railway owned lines from Providence to a junction at Blackford, from Blackford north to Waverly, and the line from Blackford south to Princeton. Most of the north-south line, once the main line of the Ohio Valley Railway (an Illinois Central Railroad predecessor) was abandoned in 1995 and 1996, leaving only the piece between Blackford and Dekoven . The Fredonia Valley Railroad later acquired the section from Princeton to Fredonia and it is still in operation today. The rest of the line was abandoned in 2010 and removed from Providence to Wheatcroft and the surrounding mines.

However, there was an earlier rail company by the name of Western Kentucky Railroad Company, and the way I found out about it has a lot of the similar excitement and drama of History Channel’s Curse of Oak Island television series.

I grew up in Marshall County, Kentucky, and although today’s railfans would easily recognize the Paducah & Louisville (formerly Illinois Central Kentucky Division) mainline in the northern part of the county, most are unaware of a small branch line of the Louisville & Nashville that crossed the county on a diagonal from Paducah, through the county seat of Benton, to Hardin and down to Murray. Originally the mainline of the Paducah, Tennessee & Alabama Railroad, the railroad line was transferred a couple of times before becoming the Paducah Branch of the L&N.

The 38-mile line north of Hardin to Paducah was abandoned by L&N in 1982, and a research project this past fall of 2018 resulted in a huge amount of railroad history I was never aware of, including one event that just left me scratching my head with the words “Really ???” echoing back through 35+ years.

I started with some internet searches, and soon found that the Marshall County Library had scanned the complete collections of all county newspapers since the 1880s available on-line to card-carrying members. A quick call to the main branch explaining my Marshall County roots and interest in railroad history got me the necessary credentials and access to a wealth of information. If you haven’t tried this type of research, it can be amazing and provide you with many new adventures as a member of the NRHS.

Like many abandonments of the early 1980s, local businesses and government officials fought the abandonment quite heavily, including the formation of the Purchase Area Rail Support Association, or PARSA. Consolidated Aluminum, Marshall County Soil Improvement Association, Kashway Building Materials, Treas Lumber Company, and Hardin Grain Elevator worked with L&N, fought with L&N, and tried numerous ways to preserve rail service to Benton and Hardin. On April 1, 1981, several L&N employees and railroad investors formed the Western Kentucky Railroad Company, headquartered in Paducah, in an attempt to purchase the track and form a short line railroad company. Although the attempt was unsuccessful due to not being able to agree on a reasonable price, the efforts of PARSA and WKRC did extend the life of the L&N in Marshall County, and eventually resulted in Jack Dunigan, owner of the Hardin Grain Elevator, purchasing a shorter segment from Hardin to Murray that became the J&J Railroad. In the early 1990s, the J&J Railroad was sold to Hardin Southern, who provided tourist railroad service on the line before it was abandoned in the early 2000’s.

One search revealed probably the most interesting newspaper article I have found to date regarding this railroad line, the January 1980 derailment of a 77-car coal train at Benton, Kentucky. That’s right, 77-cars of coal going up the old Paducah Branch to its final destination of TVA’s Shawnee Steam Plant. Since the L&N had part ownership of the Paducah & Illinois Railroad, it could directly service TVA. But what’s more interesting is the fact that by this time, the L&N “Memphis Line” between Guthrie, Clarksville, and Paris would have been severed at the Tennessee River bridge in Danville, Tennessee. The routing would have been via Nashville, New Johnsonville, and Bruceton. And a search of The Paducah Sun shows a clear photo not of L&N hoppers, but Norfolk & Western coal hoppers at the derailment site. Whether this was an interchanged train from N&W, an L&N detour from a more direct route via Madisonville and the ICG Kentucky Division, or what, I have yet to find out.  Certainly a good mystery.