No Passenger Trains to Pull

We’re looking around the yard in Lafayette, Indiana, that once was used by the Monon Railroad. Something out of the ordinary to see today is EMD E7A No. 790, which is being stored here. In case you’re wondering how Louisville & Nashville passenger varnish wound up here, the L&N at this time owned the former Monon.

In its early years, Amtrak assigned former L&N E units to its Chicago-Florida South Wind and it passed through Lafayette on the former New York Central for several months until being rerouted in January 1972.

Interestingly, that train, renamed the Floridian in November 1971, would stop in Lafayette on the former Monon between March 1975 and its discontinuance in early October 1979.

Photograph by Robert Farkas

On the L&N in Kentucky

We found Louisville & Nashville Alco FA-2 Nos. 316 and L&N 315 in DeCoursey Yard in DeCoursey, Kentucky, in August 1970. Both units were built in June 1956.

Photograph by Robert Farkas

Ex-L&N C30-7 Donated to Kentucky Museum

The Kentucky Steam Heritage Corporation has received a donation of a non-operable C30-7 diesel.

The locomotive was a gift from the Collis P. Huntington Railroad Historical Society and is painted in the colors of Marshall University.

One of 44 of this model road-switchers ordered by the Louisville & Nashville from General Electric in 1979-80, No 7067 was retired from the CSX motive power roster in 1999 and donated to the Huntington Society in 2017.

Kentucky Steam plans to paint the 7067 into its original L&N Family Lines paint livery and place it on static display in Ravenna, Kentucky.

The group will need to raise funds to pay to move the unit this summer.

At the Fueling Rack in Sharonville

Louisville & Nashville F9B No. 578 is at Penn Central’s Sharonville Yard’s fueling facility in Sharonville, Ohio, on Aug. 25, 1972. It appears to be surrounded by PC units.

Photograph by Robert Farkas

‘Invisible’ L&N Heritage Units

It may not be obvious but you are looking at two Louisville & Nashville heritage units.

No, CSX GP38-3 No. 2031 and SD40-3 No. 4065 are not wearing any L&N markings. But both units were purchased by the L&N decades ago.

Neither unit, though, came from the EMD factory looking like they do in this photograph of CSX southbound manifest freight Q561 in Hamilton, Ohio.

They were delivered as, respectively, a GP38-2 and an SD40-2. A few years ago CSX rebuilt each locomotive and in the process gave it a new squared-off cab that some wags have described as SpongeBob SquareCab after a children’s cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants.

In case you were wondering, the 2031 was built in April 1972 as L&N No. 4061. The 4065 emerged as L&N 8074.

The train they are helping to pull will soon complete its journey from Selkirk Yard near Albany, New York, to Queeesgate Yard in Cincinnati.

The image was made last Friday on the joint line used by southbound CSX and Norfolk Southern trains in Hamilton.

Article and Photograph by Craig Sanders

An L&N Memory

We don’t usually think of the Louisville & Nashville as having served Ohio although some of its passengers trains originated and terminated at Cincinnati Union Terminal.

Some L&N transfer runs would have crossed the Ohio River to interchange with other railroads in the Queen City.

But the L&N proper ended in Newport, Kentucky, across the river from Cincinnati.

Shown is L&N Alco RS3 reposing at DeCoursey Yard on the Kentucky side of Greater Cincinnati on Dec. 28, 1972.

Photograph by Robert Farkas