Touring the L&N Henderson Subdivision

In this video, Allen Keller gives a tour of Rick Rideout’s L&N Henderson Subdivision. Starting in the Chicago St. Louis staging area, this brief tour follows a 721 daily piggyback train to Nashville. It first passes in front of Continental Grain Company and then Reitz High School where Rick Rideout met his wife, Vicky. The train heads into the north end of Howl Yard in Evansville. It is a large 30 feet yard with 12 through tracks and has the capacity to classify over 200 cars. The south end of Howl Yard features Gumdrop switch, whose interesting lore is told by Keller. The 721 clears the yard and approaches the Ohio River Bridge to Henderson, Kentucky. Following the Ohio River Bridge, the train crosses a plate girder bridge over Little Red River as it heads into Trenton.

In Trenton, Highway 41 passes over the main and the train approaches the yard at Guthrie, Kentucky. Here the L&N crosses the main along the Kentucky-Tennessee border and continues onto Springfield and finally to Portland, Tennessee. Portland is the last town where the Guthrie Local switches. The Greenbrier Grocery and General Store offers the main shopping location in the area. The 720 leaves a tunnel and approaches Nashville, offloading at the National Staging Yard and cargo being delivered the rest of the way by truck. The 768 Daily National Evansville Connection moves out – using 3 units to move a train of its size – and moves into Bakers Tunnel.