October 5, 2020 – CSXT 598 snakes its way off the east diamond lead, with a Paducah and Louisville Railway crew on empty coal train PAL PNX1, onto the CSX Henderson Subdivision at Madisonville, Ky after bringing it back from Calvert City Loadout at Calvert City, Ky.
Tech Info: Full Frame Nikon D800, RAW, Sigma 150-600 @ 500mm, f/9, 1/1000, ISO 2000.
September 12, 2020 – CSX Q683 heads over the Patoka River at Patoka, Indiana as it heads south on the CSX CE&D Subdivision.
Tech Info: DJI Mavic Mini Drone, JPG, 4.5mm (24mm equivalent lens) f/2.8, 1/200, ISO 100.
May 13, 2020 – Paducah and Louisville Railway (PAL) 2107, leads LV1, a Scotty’s Rock train, south with PAL 2106, 2121 and 2100 trailing, as they roll through the valley at Caneyville, Kentucky, after picking a load of rock cars from Scotty’s Contracting & Stone at Litchfield, bound for their Madisonville operation.
Tech Info: DJI Mavic Mini Drone, JPG, 4.5mm (24mm equivalent lens) f/2.8, 1/1250, ISO 100.
October 3, 2020 – Evansville Western Railway 6001 and 6002 lead a local freight past the siding at Abee, Indiana as they approach the Wildeman Road Crossing on their way back to Mount Vernon, IN after doing interchange work with CSX at Howell Yard in Evansville, IN.
Tech Info: DJI Mavic Mini Drone, JPG, 4.5mm (24mm equivalent lens) f/2.8, 1/1600, ISO 100.
September 24, 2020 – Paducah & Louisville (PAL) 4512 and Evansville Western 4511 lead a 5,400ft loaded coal train through downtown Calvert City, Kentucky on its way to the Calvert City Loadout.
Tech Info: DJI Mavic Mini Drone, JPG, 4.5mm (24mm equivalent lens) f/2.8, 1/320, ISO 100.
September 26, 2020 – CSXT 834 leads Q647 (Chicago, IL (BRC) – Waycross, GA) through downtown Crofton, Kentucky as it heads south on the Henderson Subdivision.
Tech Info: DJI Mavic Mini Drone, JPG, 4.5mm (24mm equivalent lens) f/2.8, 1/640, ISO 100.
October 1, 2020 – CSX Q512 (Waycross, GA – Avon, IN Daily) passes CSX Q503 (Chicago, IL (BRC) – Nashville, TN Daily) sitting in the siding at Kelly, Kentucky as 512 heads north on the Henderson Subdivision to Avon, IN.
Tech Info: DJI Mavic Mini Drone, JPG, 4.5mm (24mm equivalent lens) f/2.8, 1/2500, ISO 100.
September 21, 2020 – Paducah and Louisville Railway University of Kentucky locomotive 2012 and 4503 lead the afternoon Louisville Gas and Electric coal train across the trestle at Big Clifty, Kentucky on its way north to Louisville.
Tech Info: DJI Mavic Mini Drone, JPG, 4.5mm (24mm equivalent lens) f/2.8, 1/1250, ISO 100.
September 24, 2020 –
September 24, 2020 – Paducah and Louisville Railway (PAL) 2109 and its crew work their yard at Paducah, Kentucky as early signs of fall begin to appear in the trees.
Tech Info: Full Frame Nikon D800, RAW, Nikon 70-300 @ 180mm, f/5, 1/1000, ISO 450.
C (PAL) 2109 and its crew work their yard at Paducah, Kentucky as early signs of fall begin to appear in the trees.
Tech Info: Full Frame Nikon D800, RAW, Nikon 70-300 @ 180mm, f/5, 1/1000, ISO 450.
September 26, 2020 – CSX local J732 crosses over the north fork of the Little River, passing the Holland Substation for the Hopkinsville Electric System, as it heads south on the Henderson Subdivision at Hopkinsville, Kentucky.
Tech Info: DJI Mavic Mini Drone, JPG, 4.5mm (24mm equivalent lens) f/2.8, 1/240, ISO 200.
September 29, 2020 – Paducah and Louisville Railway (PAL) 2109, 2110, 2117 and 2120 lead local WW1 across Interstate 69 at Madisonville, Kentucky as they head to CSX’s Atkinson yard with a lone car today for interchange with CSX after dropping off a long string of cars at their West Yard in Madisonville. From here they will take the junction trackage called East Diamond and head back across the other bridge in the background to Atkinson at Madisonville where they dropped the car and picked up a much longer string of cars for the return trip to Princeton, Ky.
PAL runs this local pretty much M-S from Princeton to Madisonville and there’s another local that runs from Paducah to Princeton to move traffic between those cities with pretty much the same schedule. There’s also another local that runs from Louisville to Paducah and back, but it is normally a night run in both directions. Occasionally I see these trains run also on Sunday, but it’s not the norm.
Tech Info: DJI Mavic Mini Drone, JPG, 4.5mm (24mm equivalent lens) f/2.8, 1/800, ISO 200.
September 26, 2020 – Paducah and Louisville 4512 leads empty coal train loop in Nebo, Kentucky, with a tinge of fall foliage beginning to show in the trees.
Tech Info: DJI Mavic Mini Drone, JPG, 4.5mm (24mm equivalent lens) f/2.8, 1/400, ISO 200.
September 26, 2020 – CSXT 3159 leads Q648 (Waycross, GA – Chicago, IL) across the Gum Lick Trestle, north of Kelly, Kentucky, as it heads north on the Henderson Subdivision.
Tech Info: DJI Mavic Mini Drone, JPG, 4.5mm (24mm equivalent lens) f/2.8, 1/400, ISO 100.
September 27, 2020 – Kansas City Southern 4054 and 4744 lead loaded ethanol train, CSX K443-26, as it pulls out of the south end of Rankin siding as it continues its move south on the Henderson Subdivision at Rankin, Kentucky.
Tech Info: DJI Mavic Mini Drone, JPG, 4.5mm (24mm equivalent lens) f/2.8, 1/240, ISO 100.
September 26, 2020 – CSXT 3159 leads northbound CSX Q648 past the old Louisville and Nashville (L&N) depot in downtown Hopkinsville, Ky as it heads north on the Henderson Subdivision.
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 outside were warehouses for freight, usually tobacco.
Its last long distance 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. It was last used by the Pennyrile Arts Council and from what I last heard it is empty. CSX, which bought out the Louisville & Nashville, still run trains on the tracks next to the depot, but do not stop.
Tech Info: DJI Mavic Mini Drone, JPG, 4.5mm (24mm equivalent lens) f/2.8, 320, ISO 100.
September 26, 2020 – The last shot of the day! Today was the annual outing for the West Kentucky Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society and many of us gathered at Crofton, Kentucky on the CSX Henderson Subdivision to enjoy each others company and do a bit of railfanning COVID19 style!
I’ve been wanting to try a blue hour photograph from my drone and while waiting for this K422 train to finish dropping of a grain portion of the train to RJ Corman in Guthrie I decided if I was going to photograph it I’d have to drive the 20 miles from Hopkinsville, where I was around sunset if I was going to catch it.
So, talk about stability, this is a 3 second exposure taken during the blue hour of Canadian Pacific 8930 leading K422 as it waited for a NB green at the north end of Guthrie, Kentucky on the CSX Henderson Subdivision. It was shot about 20 minutes after sunset from my DJI Mavic Mini Drone.
I shot several shots, but this is the one that I liked the best. I will say that it was also probably the sharpest one of the 6 that I shot, all at the same shutter speed. The ISO was 400.
While the light was fading fast, as it does during the blue hour, there was enough where I could maintain line of sight with the drone.
All in all it was probably one of my best days trackside with the drone so far, with fellow railfans, where I caught 15 different shots that I’ll post from this days shoot over the next couple of weeks!
Tech Info: DJI Mavic Mini Drone, JPG, 4.5mm (24mm equivalent lens) f/2.8, 3 seconds, ISO 400.
September 22, 2020 – CSXT 290 leads K997 across Trident as it heads north on the Henderson Subdivision at Madisonville, Kentucky.
Tech Info: DJI Mavic Mini Drone, JPG, 4.5mm (24mm equivalent lens) f/2.8, 1/1000, ISO 100.
September 24, 2020 – Paducah & Louisville (PAL) 4512 and Evansville Western 4511 lead a 5,400ft loaded coal train across Barkley Dam at Grand Rivers, Kentucky on the Cumberland River, as they head for the Calvert City Coal Terminal at Calvert City, Ky.
Barkley Dam construction along with Kentucky Dam formed the Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area by stopping the flow of the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers, forming Lake Barkley and Kentucky Lake respectively and the PAL mainline runs right across the dam.
Tech Info: DJI Mavic Mini Drone, JPG, 4.5mm (24mm equivalent lens) f/2.8, 1/320, ISO 100.
September 22, 2020 – On the first day of fall Paducah & Louisville local WW1, led by PAL 2112 crosses of the CSX Henderson Subdivision at the location known as Monarch in Madisonville, Ky.
The local was on its way to CSX’s Atkinson yard to perform interchange work between the PAL and CSX after making their way from the PAL yard at Princeton, Kentucky. Still working on trying to catch two trains at this spot! It will happen!
Tech Info: DJI Mavic Mini Drone, JPG, 4.5mm (24mm equivalent lens) f/2.8, 1/140, ISO 100.
September 21, 2020 – Paducah and Louisville Railway University of Kentucky locomotive 2012 leads the afternoon Louisville Gas and Electric coal train as it skirts the downtown area of Central City, Kentucky on its way north to Louisville.
The grassy area below is the general location of the old Illinois Central depot from the days when passenger trains used to service Central City. There used to be an elevator that took the passengers up to the tracks to catch their trains.
Tech Info: DJI Mavic Mini Drone, JPG, 4.5mm (24mm equivalent lens) f/2.8, 1/1250, ISO 100.