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Louisville headquarters, Union Station

L&N’s heart was west of downtown Louis-ville, on Broadway, which the general of-fice building faced between 9th (on left)and 10th Streets, just east of Union Sta-tion. The photo was taken on May 3, 1966,the day before the 92nd Kentucky Derby.

1 Victoria Hotel2 Union Station3 Baggage building4 General Office building5 Original 1858 trainshed6 Grade yard (later an employee parking lot)7 Trainshed8 Pullman Co. and L&N Mechanical Dept. offices9 Coach yard

10 Connection to PRR, to Ohio River bridge, Chicago11 Site of old 10th Street Roundhouse (1868-1937)12 “10th Street Roundhouse” (crew building; service

for passenger diesels)13 Railway Express building14 Maple Street yard (auxiliary coach yard)15 Old Kentucky Locomotive Works (L&N records

storage after 1905)16 Dining-car department commissary17 Maintenance-of-Way Department office18 Oak Street freight yard19 Illinois Central roundhouse at Oak Street yard20 Kentucky & Indiana Terminal main line (Southern

and Monon [passenger] rights) to Youngtown Yard21 LS Junction (K&IT-Southern)22 Southern Railway to Danville, Ky.23 K&T Junction (L&N-K&IT)24 L&N to A Street Tower (jct. with Cincinnati line),

Fourth Street crossing (SOU), S. Louisville Shops

THE LOUISVILLE & NASHVILLE RAILROAD began by linking

its namesake cities, and eventually grew to reach New

Orleans, Memphis, St. Louis, and Atlanta. But Kentuc-

ky’s largest city was L&N’s home, heart, and headquarters,

and the Bluegrass State’s top natural resource—coal—sus-

tained the carrier that came to call itself “the Old Reliable.”

Three key locations on the Old Reliable

6 4 C L A S S I C T R A I N S | W I N T E R 2 0 0 4

In the railroad’s official compa-ny history, published in 1943, thefirst chapter was titled “An Acornis Planted.” Without question, thetree which became the L&N wasrooted at the very spot in Louis-ville where the beautiful marbleRomanesque Union Station, andits six-track trainshed, would openin 1891. Here was the L&N’s firstpassenger and freight station, builtin 1858, a year before the firstthrough train would operate toNashville. Most of that structurelasted well over a century.

A major system shop at 10thand Kentucky—the old KentuckyLocomotive Works (which built 75engines from scratch)—lasteduntil 1905, when South LouisvilleShops opened. Some of the oldKLW structures were still arounddecades later for storage of L&Ncompany records and other uses.

One of the most imposing land-marks pictured is the 11-storyL&N general office building(GOB), a slender structure facingBroadway, built in 1902 and dou-bled in size in 1930. It was thoughtto be the largest office building inthe United States occupied by asingle railroad company.

The stub-end Union Stationhandled passenger trains of L&N,Monon, Pennsylvania, and, begin-ning in 1963, Chesapeake & Ohio.(Central Station, on the OhioRiver, handled trains of Baltimore& Ohio, Illinois Central, New YorkCentral, Southern, and—until itclosed in ’63—C&O.)

Support facilities at Union Sta-tion included plenty of auxiliarycoach yards to handle the annual350 to 400 extra sleeping and of-fice cars that would visit UnionStation for Derby Day. Servicingfacilities for passenger dieselswere more spartan than the 15-stall 10th Street roundhouse thatstood until 1937, but the term“roundhouse” survived for thesmall crew shack for passengertrains nearby.

The station remained in serviceuntil 1976, and was acquired bythe city’s transit authority and re-stored in 1980. The GOB was soldto the state in 1984 for offices, butthe large neon “L&N” sign high onthe building’s east side is still illu-minated at night—a fitting tributeto a Kentucky-based company thatloomed large in Louisville’s history.

—Ron Flanary

© 2010 Kalmbach Publishing Co. This material may not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher. www.ClassicTrainsMag.com

c l a s s i c t r a i n smag . c om | C L A S S I C T R A I N S 6 7

South Louisville shops

Opened in 1905, L&N’s 50-acre shopcomplex 3 miles south of the General Of-fice Building was for years Kentucky’slargest single manufacturing plant. Thesite was the junction of the main line withthe double-track “Railway Transfer” freightline for trains to and from Cincinnati. “TheTransfer” was so-called because it linkedL&N’s original line with the Louisville,Cincinnati & Lexington “Short Line” thatentered the city at East Louisville.

By 1915, South Louisville shop hadbuilt, from scratch, 282 steam locomotives,184 passenger cars, and 14,209 freightcars, but a bitter 1922 labor strike broughtan end to L&N home-built locomotives.

This view from the early 1940’s looksnorthwest. Surrounding the main erectingshop are ancillary buildings coveringevery imaginable support functionrequired by the construction or rebuildingof all equipment. On the “slip track,” en-gines were outfitted with a temporary ap-paratus that oiled the rails, allowing shopmen to watch running gear thrash at highspeed while the engine was barely moving.

South Louisville served L&N as itsprincipal shop until successor CSX beganphasing out operations in 1987. All workceased in 1992, and the structures wererazed two years later. Today, the Universityof Louisville’s football stadium stands onthe site which was the mechanical heartof the Old Reliable in its prime.

1 Floyd Street Tower, L&N-SR (from Danville) crossing2 L&N pattern shop3 Foundry4 Car shops5 Blacksmith shop6 40-stall erecting shop, with transfer table7 Tender and coach shop8 Offices, Mechanical Dept., Building No. 19 Power plant

10 Freight car shop11 “Slip track,” locomotive testing area12 Ice dock13 South Louisville North Yard14 Employee pedestrian bridge (end of Central Ave.)15 L&N main line to Union Station, south to Nashville16 Fourth St. interlocking (L&N-Southern crossing)17 Railway Transfer, double track, to/from Cincinnati18 Scrap yard19 Yard office, North Yard20 25-stall roundhouse, 85-foot turntable21 Old Kentucky Wagon Works22 Floyd St. (upper), Park Blvd. (lower)

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c l a s s i c t r a i n smag . c om | C L A S S I C T R A I N S 6 9

Corbin, Ky., operational watershed

Corbin, a city of 7700, was—and re-mains—an operational watershed for L&Nand successor CSX. When this photo wastaken in 1945, it was the quintessentialsmoky railroad town, the launching padfor L&N’s heavy-haul, double-track corri-dor north to Cincinnati. L&N’s top steampower, 20 Baldwin M-1 class “Big Emma”2-8-4’s, were in service, and Lima woulddeliver the final 22 four years later. FourM-1’s, identified by their large sand domes,are in this photo. South of Corbin, L&Nwas single-track, 2-8-2 and 4-8-2 territory.

L&N first entered Lynn Camp, as Cor-bin was originally called, in 1882, and be-gan though service to Knoxville in 1883.Corbin would become a major bituminouscoal hub and division point when theCumberland Valley Division (which builteastward in 1886) reached a Norfolk &Western connection at Norton, Va., in1891. After the CV got more coal feederlines and L&N reached Atlanta (in 1905),Corbin got more yard tracks and a biggerroundhouse, backshop, and servicing fa-cilities in 1921. Beginning in the Depres-sion, Corbin was the only L&N locomotiveshop besides South Louisville to do heavyclass repairs. CV Division offices movedfrom Middlesboro to Corbin in 1948.

Corbin’s East Yard handled merchan-dise traffic; its West Yard, coal off the CV.While some functions would change, Cor-bin remains a traffic and maintenance hubfor CSX, and both yards still function inthe same manner, although the originalshop and servicing areas were replaced bymodern facilities south of the steam sites.

1 Backshop, 7 stalls2 Roundhouse, 26 stalls, 100-foot turntable3 North yard office, East Yard4 East Yard5 Cinder hoist and cinder pit6 Mechanical Dept. offices7 “RIP” (repair-in-place) car-repair tracks8 Wrecker outfits (two)9 Coaling station, with sand facility

10 Engine ready tracks, northbound (Cincinnati, CV,and Louisville Divisions

11 Car clean-out tracks12 West Yard13 Engine ready tracks, southbound (K&A Division)14 U.S. 2515 Main line to Corbin depot, eventually Cincinnati16 K&A Division to Knoxville, Tenn., and Atlanta, Ga.17 Future (1956) U.S. Steel coal preparation plant18 To “High Line,” for points north and east

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