Thursday, March 18, 2021

Hopkinsville, KY: 1892 L&N Depot, Grain Elevators and CSX Casky Yard

Depot: (Satellite)
Elevator: (Satellite)

Street View

Jim Pearson Photography posted
CSX Local J732 northbound passing the L&N Depot, Hopkinsville, Ky
This has been probably the best snow year we’ve had for a long time where in Western Kentucky, allowing for an abundance of favorite railroad snow scenes for me and this one taken on February 19th, 2021 is no exception!
CSX J732, the local between Casky Yard at Hopkinsville and Atkinson Yard in Madisonville, heads north past the old Louisville and Nashville Railway depot at Hopkinsville, Kentucky on the Henderson Subdivision, as a blanket of snow covers the ground and depot. It’s running with a trio of SD 40’s 4286 leading the way with a SD40-3.
According to Wikipedia: “The L & N Railroad Depot in the Hopkinsville Commercial Historic District of Hopkinsville, Kentucky is a historic railroad station on the National Register of Historic Places. It was built by the Louisville & Nashville Railroad in 1892.
The year 1832 saw the first of many attempts to woo a railroad to Hopkinsville. This first attempt was to connect Hopkinsville to Eddyville, Kentucky. In 1868 Hopkinsville finally obtained a railroad station, operated by the Evansville, Henderson, & Nashville Railroad. The Louisville & Nashville Railroad acquired the railroad in 1879.
The Hopkinsville depot is a single-story frame building with a slate roof. It has six rooms: A Ladies Waiting room (the room closest to the street), a General Waiting Room, a Colored Waiting Room, a baggage room (the furthest room from the street), a ticket office (the only room which connected to all three waiting rooms), and a ladies' restroom. Immediately outsides were warehouses for freight, usually tobacco.
Its last long-distance (passenger) train was the Louisville and Nashville's Georgian, last operating in 1968.
During its operating years, the Hopkinsville depot was a popular layover spot for those traveling by train. It was the only Louisville & Nashville station between Evansville, Indiana and Nashville, Tennessee where it was legal to drink alcohol. Hopkinsville got the nickname "Hop town" due to train passengers asking the conductors when they would arrive at Hopkinsville, so they could "hop off and get a drink".
The Hopkinsville L & N Railroad Depot was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 1, 1975. CSX, which bought out the Louisville & Nashville, still run trains on the tracks next to the depot, but do not stop.”
Tech Info: Nikon D800, RAW, Nikon DX 10-20mm lens @24mm (crop lens) f/4.5, 1/800, ISO 100.

3:49 video @ 1:28

4:37 video
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Grain Elevator


It is not rail served because there isn't a fall protector nor long sidings. But I wonder what the story is about that lone hopper I included on the left of this view.
Street View, Jun 2022

Jim Pearson posted
CSXT 1973, Chessie System Heritage Unit, leads CSX M647 as it passes the Hopkinsville Elevator Company complex at Skyline Drive in Hopkinsville, Ky, as it continues south on the CSX Henderson Subdivision, on March 30th, 2024. The Henderson Subdivision has seen a lot of CSX Heritage units the last week or so and hopefully there’ll be more in the future so I can capture and share them with you! I’ll be posting some videos of these moves in future Saturday Edited Videos so keep an eye out for them!
According to Wikipedia: The three railroads that would make up the Chessie System had been closely related since the 1960s. C&O had acquired controlling interest in B&O in 1962, and the two had jointly controlled WM since 1967.
Chessie System, Inc. was a holding company that owned the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O), the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O), the Western Maryland Railway (WM), and Baltimore and Ohio Chicago Terminal Railroad (B&OCT). Trains operated under the Chessie name from 1973 to 1987.
On November 1, 1980, Chessie System merged with Seaboard Coastline Industries to form CSX Corporation. Initially, the three Chessie System railroads continued to operate separately, even after Seaboard’s six Family Lines System railroads were merged into the Seaboard System Railroad on December 29, 1982. That began to change in 1983, when the WM was merged into the B&O. The Chessie image continued to be applied to new and re-painted equipment until July 1, 1986, when CSXT introduced its own paint scheme. In April 1987, the B&O was merged into the C&O. In August 1987, C&O merged into CSX Transportation, a 1986 renaming of the Seaboard System Railroad, and the Chessie System name was retired.
Tech Info: DJI Mavic 3 Classic Drone, RAW, 22mm, f/2.8, 1/1600, ISO 100.

The grain elevator was also on the L&N tracks.
1951 Hopkinsville Quad @ 24,000

South of the tracks is a seed supply facility. And in the upper-left corner is a lone railcar.
Satellite

They have built a new fertilizer supply facility out east next to their...
Satellite

...ethanol plant.
Satellite

1 of 8 construction photos of the ethanol plant

The cover video on their website is a drone video of a long line of trucks that is fed by a bunch of trucks that are parked in a parking lot. This photo shows the "harvest line" (their term) for 2020. Note that the parking lot is just half full.
CommonwealthAgriEnergy

I don't think of southern Kentucky as part of the corn belt, but this town has a lot of agriculture business. In addition to the above huge co-op, I noticed the following.

A rail-served flour mill:
Satellite

Another rail-served food products mill:
Satellite

Chicken feed:
Satellite

Street View, Jul 2023

There is so much new industry along US-41 that it appears that CSX built a new railyard. I'm used to yard tracks being removed rather than being added.
Satellite

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