As usual, there is L&N power up front on 214, a Cincy to NOLA train that was a combined effort between L&N and Western Railway of Alabama. That diamond-shaped concrete sign, however, is all West ... (more)

Just after a summer shower, the L&N NOLA-Cincy run-through climbs the hill out of Opelika behind a cool collection of diesels- GP38-2/U25B/GP40/U23B.

When L&N and Western Railway of Alabama established Cincinnati-NOLA trains 213/214 in 1973 (early Family Lines days...), I do not think the trains worked anywhere between the endpoints. Within a ... (more)

One of the last cab units left on L&N sits at the Boyles engine facility. I saw this unit at Cullman 15 days later, as trailing unit on the northbound long-distance local. It was last time I eve... (more)

Western Railway of Alabama trains 213/214 were run-throughs in cooperation with L&N. Initiated in 1973, they were powered most days by GP38s and U23Bs, with a few GP30/35/40 mixed in. Far more u... (more)

L&N eventually acquired a pretty big group of C420s, but not in the usual way. First, L&N purchased 16 new C420s from Alco, then two more were acquired with the takeover of the Tennessee Central,... (more)

L&N GP30 1044, delivered in 1963, was badly damaged in a wreck in 1974. The rebuild resulted in an odd roof profile that combined elements of the original GP30 shape, with the newer Spartan cab s... (more)

A three-builder set of locomotives has an empty coal rain really rolling just a few minutes out from the yard at Corbin.

Fans talked about the CSX 'stealth scheme' when the first very plain, very gray C40-8s arrived around 1990, but L&N had gone stealth years before when in the mid-1970s they stopped painting loco n... (more)

L&N 1030 and 1031 aren't much past their tenth birthdays, but they are already mostly relegated to service on secondary trains, like this long-distance local heading south from S&N Yard. On the r... (more)

This is an absolutely typical power set for L&N unit coal trains in the 1970s, with three U30Cs and an SD40-2. The EMD would outlast the C-boats, but 1549 - renumbered 7243 - did make it into Sea... (more)

Sometimes you'll never know what you will find next to the road in somebody's front yard. Here, we have a fading L&N caboose that has seen better days. If this was in my front yard, I would turn i... (more)

After nearly 60 years of control, parent Louisville & Nashville merged the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis on August 30, 1957. Photographer Henry Libby, photo from my collection.

Having just crossed the Ohio River from Cincinnati, L&N 241 does some street running around the intersection of 6th & Saratoga.