CSX (L&N) Kentucky Division & branches

[landnrailroader]

A few years ago, I started doing the Eastern Kentucky Division and I wanted to include, as best as I could, the original construction of the two railroads that made the initial start toward the coal fields. As these crossed the Kentrucky Division, one in Winchester and the other in Richmond, I went ahead and included the Kentucky Div. from a point a few miles north of Winchester to a few miles south of Richmond. In doing the Corbin to Knoxville line, I had included a few miles north of Corbin, so now I am finishing out the track which will include the mainline of the former Kentucky Central from Covington, KY to Sinks, and the former Lebanon Branch from Mt. Vernon to Corbin. Note that the Lebanon "branch" was the L&N's original line from Lebanon Jct., Ky to Corbin and was for a few years a main line, hence there is a change in mileposts at Sinks. Sinks is mile 137 from Louisville and mile 151.8 from Cincinnati, and the distance between the two mileposts is 4027 feet. Cincinnati to Sinks was the Kentucky Central which then had trackage rights over the L&N into Corbin until it was acquired by the L&N. This route figures in my personal history. My uncle, J. Harry Eubank, who retired as a passenger engineer in 1958 and passed to the railroad in heaven in 1974, ran this Louisville to Corbin route many times as a fireman between his hire year of 1907 and promotion to engineer in 1917. The line was abandoned from a few miles east of Lebanon Jct. (which is now a railroad museum line) and Mt. Vernon where there is large quarry that loads unit trains of material.

There is one other branch that still exists, this being from Paris to Maysville, Ky. It is no longer CSX but is operated by a shortline. However it is not a through route evidently because the latest aerials show a number of cars stored on the main track near the Maysville end of the branch. It will be included.

The mainline was double track for the most part, for many years but when TCS was installed 40 years or so ago, some double track was shortened or removed and now that coal loadings are way off, there are sections that exist on a 2020 track chart, that are now gone. I will be back dating the route to around 1985 when it had TCS and a lot of long sidings or double track. There are many tunnels, some holding double track and others that use two essentially parallel tunnels and one instance where one track used a tunnel and the other bypassed around the tunnel with a deep cut.

Jerry

[conductorchris]

This is the territory which is your most favorite if I recall correctly. I think I've heard you talk about it like it is home. That right?

[landnrailroader]

Close but my favorite is the line between Louisville and Nashville. I have the track done but I want to add mileposts and perhaps signals as well as some basic objects and then turn it over to the super-detailers. That line was home. My uncle that I mentioned, by the time I was born in 1939, had 32 years seniority and was on the extra board for passenger trains and got 4 or 5 each months beside freight. By the time I was old enough to go down town myself, he was in his last 3 years or so and could bid and get any set of runs he wanted but Mike Traeger was his preferred fireman so they would work together in bidding, so they worked the same run packages. In the late 1940s, my uncle was regular engineer on the SouthWind but that run did not pay as well as his later package which had him running the Pan American and Hummingbird both ways, Azalean southbound, and night mail #8, northbound. He kept that package until he retired.

Jerry

[landnrailroader]

After I regenerated terrain using 10M Dem, the flat spot where there is a tunnel is now a nice narrow ridge - the tunnel is only 120ft. or so long. As we worked on up the line, I found that the part I had copied over from another route was not up to my standards today, so I redoing it in this route but since it is secondary to the other route, I'll leave as-is there. For the most part I have kept the time point at around 1990 but there is one area that I have back dated to around 1980 when the line was mostly double track and carried a LOT of coal trains. Ford Kentucky is where the line crosses the Kentucky River and this was a must see railfan location back in the day. There are truss bridges over the river that join tunnels on the south end of the span. These tunnels are not parallle but are more like concentric curves. It would difficult beyond me to get them exactly right, so I fake it till I make it. Back then the double track started at CP Boonesborough and extended north through 3 tunnel pairs. The first was immediately after the control point, then a gap of about 3/4 mile and two more, these ending at the truss bridges and then a mile further on there was another pair. Around 1995 or so, double track was cut back north to Ford and the SB track was removed though the bridge for it remains as does the tunnel. Then about 3 months ago, double track was cut back almost to Winchester, or about 8 miles further north. Here are the tunnels just south of Ford with bridge rails where the truss spans will go, and the next location south. The curves are generally 5 degrees but I mixed 5 & 6 degree curves and 250meter radius curves to get a nearly exact fit. Where possible I have used tunnel pieces and the tunnels will be completed with some 33ft. tunnel shapes that I found someplace, don't remember where. I am going to make my own shapes for the one double track tunnel located just north of Sinks, KY. Why is it named "Sinks", well Roundstone Creek disappears into the ground (a cave really) and appears to sink out of sight, so early explorers called it "Sinks of Roundstone" or just "Sinks". FORD_BRGS.jpg FORD_BRGS2.jpg Keep safe and have a great rest of the week.
Jerry

[landnrailroader]

Continuing on this project, I completed the line as far as a junction point just south of the C&O bridge over the Ohio R. in Cincinnati where the L&N joined the C&O to enter into the Cincinnati passenter station after about 1934. There is another junction a few miles further south where the LCL subdivison of the L&N branches off toward Louisville. This was the route of the Pan American and the Hummingbird while the line south toward Corbin carried the SouthLand and the Flamingo. Then I did the branch, now a independent shortline from Paris to Maysville, KY, about 45 miles which is a very hilly line, crossing several watercourses at near 90 degree angles. If it was ever a mainline train handling would have been a fright.

And now I have just completed the short branch from Sinks to Mt. Vernon. A lot of history here. This is the eastern 8 miles or so of what was once the Lebanon Branch. This line was built from Lebanon Jct., KY (and I have the mainline of the L&N nearly ready to release, which includes that Jct.) to Corbin as a way to reach Atlanta and trackage rights over the SR was acquired between Jellico & Knoxville, replaced by the KL&J (Knoxville Lafollete & Jellico) around 1915. My Uncle was a fireman on many Lebanon branch trains until he promoted to engineer in 1917, so this piece of history has a place in my makeup. Mt. Vernon was also the home (and burial place) of a pastor we had in WV, and who handled my late wife's celebration of life in 1986. An interesting feature is the big quarry at Mt. Vernon. I have attached a clip of it from a buzzards point of view. Activity creators will tear their hair here. The loadout is located about halfway up the left side of the loop. My guess is the empties were pulled clockwise around the loop until the last car cleared the loadout. Then the engines were uncoupled and continued clockwise until coupling to what was the rear of the train. Then the loading was done rotating counter-clockwise and the engines pulled the train in that direction and out onto the lead from Sinks. There is also a wye as part of this situation. The main of the branch continues to the left about another mile, passing through a tunnel to reach a manufacturing plant almost at the end of track. There are 4 tunnels on the existing & simulated part of the branch.

Jerry
MT_V_QUARRY.png

[MMCdude]

Looking forward to running some coal trains on the TTI.

[jbtower]

Looks fantastic Jerry

[landnrailroader]

First, I thank you for your service. Yes, I forget what that shortline is called but they are somewhat famous for being one of the last places you will find "U-Boats". The HQ is in Paris and there is a small engine terminal at Maysville that appears to be theirs at least in part. It is just west of downtown along the CSX line, and the coal transload is just east of town. I don't know if the shortline handled coal all the way to the transload or if they turn it over to CSX there. I am including the CSX line from a mile or so east of the coal transload to a mile or so west of the engine terminal.

In addition, I discovered a lot of industry that I had missed in Richmond, KY. There is also the BlueGrass Arsenal located just south of town and I had not intended to include it because I would ass/u/me that the military handles their own switching, and I had not included enough tiles to create the eastern 1/2 of the arsenal anyway, but there is industrial complex that branches off the arsenal lead and I am including that (which was the missed part).

I should also point out that there is aluminum recycle facility just north of Berea, KY that is served by RJCorman by trackage rights, so activities could involve picking up the ingot cars here and moving them to the L&N line toward Frankfort at Winchester, which is now owned or leased by RJC. Those ingot trains eventually go to another factory near Russelville, KY that turns them into new aluminum cans. There was an article about this is Railfan & Railroad a few months back.

Another possibility that would be relatively easy would be to create a new route for just the Paris to Maysville line and then copy the world files from this route into the new one, go through and touch the track pieces or try a database rebuild and you have new, roughly 50 mile route. None of my routes will be detailed out, no will most scenery be sculpted, so it makes it easier to "super detail" my route, or a create a new one from it.

Jerry

[landnrailroader]

Thanks Kevin. I have several routes in progress, and I have digitized the Camas Praire and most of the narrow gauge D&RGW including the Chili line that was abandoned in 1941. Being 86, in good health, maybe I get most or all of them up to release? I have most track done on the Camas Praire and will do the bridges including those high timber trestles.

Jerry

[yellowdog]

Jerry, is it the Transkentucky Transportation Railroad? Scott from Diesels West created some TTI models.

[landnrailroader]

Yes, I believe that is what it is called. Rather discouraging though, if you go into Google Earth you will find several places where scads of coal hopper are parked on the main track, mostly toward the east end of the line and while everything is in place at the transload near Maysville, the tracks are devoid of any cars or trains. It is an interesting line though, up and down several times, some grades over 1% and nearly 2% where it descends to the Ohio R. at Maysville. There are some tunnels, close together in the space of a mile more or less. I haven't mastered making tunnels, so those on odd curves will use some tunnel shapes, 33ft. long, that I found somewhere. Cuts & Fills just do not look right when done with TSRE either but perhaps those with more skill than I in that area can make reasonable edits.

Jerry

[landnrailroader]

Maybe I should attend a paper doll cutting session but I decided to go ahead and include the BlueGrass Arsenal in the Kentucky Div. route. This covers a vast area and I had to add 52 more tiles & generate the terrain but that is fairly easy using my old XP machine. Time consuming because I don't dare transfer by wireless means, so I use flash drives which are fairly efficient, though slow. The interchange yard has 12 tracks in one group and 3 in another but to stay within the boundaries of the right of way, I reduced this to 10 & 3 tracks. The shortest tracks are 400M in length +-. A good mile to the south of this yard there are several rail served sites that are connected to the arsenal and then the arsenal tracks form a big loop, roughly 2 miles N-S and E-W. We don't know what the curves are, though we can measure them and get a rough guess or we can just use reasonable values.

This division does not have any coal mines on it, but it was the main conduit for coal coming off the Cumberland Valley Div. at Corbin, and the Eastern Kentucky, Div at Winchester (Patio) to continue on toward the Great Lakes steel areas, and later south to power plants. It was double track until about 1954 when CTC was installed. At that time a number of stretches of double track were removed resulting in tunnels off in the woods. These abandoned tunnels have been the subject of amateur exploration and there are a number of clips on YouTube about them. Those explorers apparently do not know how dangerous a unmaintained tunnel can be. For coal hauling, this was the home of the engines with the affectionate name of "Big Emma". Lima & Baldwin 2-8-4s, with the last group from Lima in 1949. All were scrapped by 1960, although this area was completely diesel by mid-1957. I was able to take 8mm shots of 2 of them at speed in June 1956.

At the moment, I am counting down the days. In 9 more, it is get up early time & get to the airport for a 7:20 AA flight to Dallas, Fort Worth. 1 hour layover and then another AA flight on to Albuquerque. We are riding the C&TS on Sept. 26, and I have been asked to do a docent run, probably as a 2nd docent on Sept. 28, probably my last ride on this railfan paradise. If you want to experience history & steam with very little restricitions, go ride the C&TS, particularly Chama to Antonito with bus return.

Jerry

[conductorchris]

I've been fascinated with railroading in military basis since staring at many topo maps in my youth. I've never been on any military base though and the only military locomotive I've ever seen was a gray 80 Ton centercab assigned to the Pentagon heating plant in the eighties. I'm left to the simulator to fill in the gaps!