Kentucky
Nov. 6-7

Photos by Dave Ingles

Leaving Jasper, we first called in Huntingburg, Ind., an old Southern junction point on its Louisville-St. Louis line with the French Lick and Evansville branches. We found a few units parked, but no activity.

We skirted Evansville on the Interstate and headed across the Ohio River into Henderson, Ky., to photograph the L&N depot, which I believe also served the IC.

Our next stop was Owensboro, where we found the depot in use by a business but heavily modified and difficult to shoot. A historic plaque explains it all.

After stopping on Owensboro's outskirts for lunch at a Culver's and at a carwash to clean up a soiled foot mat in the van, we went on north on the bypass road, and as we neared Hwy. 60 to head east along the railroad and Ohio River, there went an eastbound on CSX, symboled W069, with 49 ballast cars behind units 8643-6967-2367. The time was 12:30 p.m. when we caught up with a bit to the east, at MP 104 (from Louisville), for the first of what would be 4 photo ops. The L&N emblem, inserted here as a symbol, was on a displayed caboose at our fourth spot, Irvington.

We went ahead to Hawesville, a small Ohio River community and seat of Hancock County, where we shot the depot, waited for the train to come around the curve and thru the gate in the floodwall, then shot the courthouse and headed on east, at 1:10 p.m. The plaque by the depot explains where the nickname "Texas" for this line came from.

Cloverport, Ky., presented multiple choices for our next train photo, with a bridge over an Ohio River tributary, then side-of-the-street running and the depot. We chose a point just west of the depot for the sequence, at 1:20 p.m.

Our road left the railroad, and after shooting a not particularly attractive roadside branchline depot (no track, former L&N branch south from Irvington) at Harned at 1:57, we arrived in Irvington, not sure if we had gotten ahead of the train again or not. (There is a railroad tunnel between Cloverport and Irvington.) Irvington had a caboose on display, a nice depot, and a concrete coal tower still standing astraddle of a side track, with the main on the north side. After shooting the static items, we heard the train, but I was not in a great position for photos. i made slides looking toward the coal tower, of the units going away, so the digital view there is of the ballast cars passing, at 2:20. This was our last shot of the W069 train, but it "made our day" as moving trains in Indiana had been non-existent.

We bypassed Louisville in order to get another depot shot or two before we reached Frankfort, a city incidentally, Rick and I had covered on an earlier trip as far as photographing the depot, street-running track, and state capitol was concerned. All this Interstate sign south of Louisville needs is an ampersand between the city names!

At 3:50, we found the L&N station in Shelbyville, we believe on-site but with no track nearby, and heard an NS train go thru across town.

Our last depot of the day was at Pleasureville, Ky., at 4:25. We went on to Frankfort, and i snapped a few "bluegrass country" photos of our roads, lined with white or black wooden fences. We did not go into Frankfort proper, and lined up a few depots to shoot the next day, Monday the 7th, in east central Kentucky before hitting I-75 southward toward Knoxville. Interestingly, the Lexington Group took its name from its first, very informal, meeting, decades ago in Lexington, Ky., a city we just skirted this day. The late TRAINS Editor David Morgan was there, and told me about its circumstances, but I've long forgotten the details.

Our first depot shot on Monday morning was this combination former store and depot building, at Duckers, Ky., on the former L&N line between the Louisville area and Lexington, a line I rode a Kentucky Railroad Museum trip several decades ago behind its Monon BL2. The line is still active. Time here: 9:20 a.m.

This caboose, ex-L&N by its looks, is displayed next to the depot at Midway, Ky. R.J. Corman Co. is home to this area; founder R.J. died in late 2013, but his company will carry on.

After going thru Georgetown, Ky., we got to the former L&N main line between Cincinnati and Corbin, Ky., for this depot photo at Paris, at 10:35, a building that I might guess no longer stands, from its condition in 2011 (this file being posted in late 2013)

Before leaving Paris, I photographed the Bourbon County courthouse; it's 10:45 a.m. We then hit I-75 and expressed down to Corbin.

If you want to go onto CSX property at the Corbin yard, morning light is best. We parked by the depot, it being afternoon, and the best we could do in 20 minutes or so was this yard set (sorry for the poles) and then a pair of GE's, 436-40, at 1:30 p.m.

This photo might well be in Tennessee, but was our last shot while on the road, somewhere on I-75, to indicate that despite it being early November, the Appalachian South still had some fall colors in evidence.

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