CSX/L&N - Crooked Hill #3 - 11-7-2011
Rail Fan Adventure --
1. CSX 2213-6464 switch around East Bernstadt. This is the C705-07 called the "London Switcher." It operates north out of Corbin as far as Livingston and Mount Vernon. They had some large wood chip hoppers.
2. C705-07 heads south down the long industrial siding to North Bourne, the north end of a CTC-controlled passing siding. Denham & Lewis's tipple would be behind me. This siding is not the passing siding.
I got on US 25 and drove down the hill to Hazel Patch. There I took a county road over to the track at the bottom of Crooked Hill. I drove north down the right-of-way access road toward the passing siding at Perth South.
3. In that two-mile stretch is Tunnel No. 6, and this is the south portal.
4. Arriving at the south end of Perth passing siding, I am rewarded with an approach signal for a northbound. The north end of Perth is at Livingston.
5. I heard a southbound distantly, and I anticipated that it would come up the siding to await the northbound. After a while the signal went green, and northbound
Q699 (Hamlet-Cincinnati via Atlanta) with 105 cars rolled through behind 538-272.
6. The signal is General Railway Equipment, but the mast is a more recent Modern Industries that was manufactured in Louisville. The southbound was waiting on Q699 somewhere to the north, and I started my trek home.
7. The north portal of Tunnel No. 6.
8. The north portal of Tunnel No. 6. View 2.
9. The cut stone portals built in 1882 are in great shape considering they have had no attention in years. The concrete portals of the newer tunnels are crumbling.
10. From the crossing at Hazel Patch, I drove up the right of way a short distance to check out the block signals at 146.1. Nothing was imminent either way. I'm looking south, and this is about as far as you can drive. Tunnel 7 is just up around the curve which you reach be driving down the right-of-way from East Bernstadt.
I headed south on US 25 up to London and then east on the Hal Rogers Parkway and KY 80 home. The drive takes a little over two hours.
Train images used by permission of Everett N Young
last update - 25 Aug 2012