Sunday, August 26, 2012

North Platte or Bust: Part 11, La Grange, KY

August 16

We deliberately stopped a bit north of Louisville in a smallish town called La Grange.  The fact that they have street trackage, and practically celebrate it, drew our attention.  It turned out to be a terrific town to spend a few hours in.  It was nearly the only railfanning we did on a "travel day".

The old L&N depot on the west end of town was the future home of some local railfan's visitor center.  We found the very European looking steamer sitting out front.

From the end of town we drove back down into the street trackage area.  A stretch of track running about two city blocks through a busy and vibrant downtown area.  There was room for curbside parking on both sides and two lanes of traffic.  However, trains pretty much used one lane when they passed.


We located a good place to sit on the east end.  There were benches on the street corners so we picked the one with the best camera angles and lighting.  These happened to be metal rockers.   I had to get Charles to pose for a shot to show the street, the rockers and our vantage point.  We call these L.A.R.F.'ing chairs.
(Lazy A-- Rail Fanning)  This time they were provided by the city of La Grange and not pulled from the car's trunk.



The city spent a lot of energy keeping the town clean and maintained.  The streets were swept.  Flowers were growing everywhere.  Businesses seemed to be doing well.  Rather than fight the trains (CSX puts up to 30 per day through town) they celebrate it.  The city logo and slogans referred to the trains.




Amazingly, when a train came along, chaos did not develop.  Locals knew the drill well.   The business people we chatted with seemed to expect train nuts to visit and they were friendly people anyway.





Once we caught a couple of northbounds we moved to the other end of the street trackage.  Here we were next to a courthouse square and more businesses.  While we were basking in the shade of the courthouse park, a local reporter came by and asked if we were from the media (Charles' camera looks like a reporter's).  We had stumbled into another sensational murder trial (locally big this time).  We looked around and saw the people in a new light.  Lots of media types, security types and lawyer types.  I crossed the street for the next train.

We ate lunch outdoors at the One Nineteen Restaurant.  They had sidewalk tables that kept us about ten feet from the tracks.  Before, during and after we saw about 3 trains from that spot.  The staff was tickled to have a couple of rail enthusiasts around.  They were as excited about the trains as we were.  Of course, they had a business that was also across from the courthouse.  The food was good and our perky waitress kept my iced tea full.  We could see the end of the street trackage from out seats.


The light had shifted in the four hours we were around.  We decided it was time to leave.  However, there was a set of signals on the north end of the street zone that told us that a train was out there.  Red told us it was a southbound and probably at the siding north of the depot.  We headed to our original perch by the "LARFing chairs".   This gave me a chance to try some more wide angle shots.




Thinking this was it for a while, we looked at the signals again to confirm.  Still lit.  Something else was around.  We had gotten the idea from someone earlier that a local we'd seen would return south.  Sure enough, it appeared fairly soon.  This time the GP30 slug was leading.

We could leave now that we saw it.










I don't recall where Eminence fit in on the map but it was an important stop on the L&N once.  The line is gone now but was cut back to here in recent times.  Apparently bourbon was one of the chief products of the town and today Eminence Speakers are produced there.  The depot was unique enough to photograph.  It turned out to be the last significant rail shot of the day.  We were traveling to our last night's stop at the Elkhorn Inn in Landgraff, West Virginia.

We were headed into the hills.  No more straight and level roads for a while.  We had to go past Frankfort and Lexington to get into the serious mountains, but it was already getting rugged outside of La Grange.  We'd see it all by the time we found the Elkhorn Inn.  It wasn't exactly off an Interstate highway on the prarie.

BC

















No comments:

Welcome to HAPT's Railfan Adventures


The Hebron Any Power Team is actually just a bunch of fun-loving rail enthusiasts who enjoy photographing and chasing all things railroad with friends. This bunch of guys cover a lot of ground for a group based way up "nawth" in Maine. We also have friends scattered around the country who contribute well to our hobby. In fact, our name is derived from our actual friends in the Worcester Foreign Power Team, except that Hebron hasn't seen a train since the 1950's so we'll settle for "any power".

Welcome and enjoy the eclectic collections of the contributors. Maine idealizes "life in the slow lane" so we present this blog as an effort to share our less time sensitive findings and to add to our hobby.