L&N SOU Middlesboro, KY track plan HO
- Size: 15′ x 20′
- Scale: HO
- Minimum Radius: 30″ (unless otherwise noted)
- Minimum Aisle Width: 30″
- Designed by Dan Bourque
The L&N first reached the hamlet of Middlesboro, KY (then Middlesborough) around 1890 on it’s quest to tap the coalfields and build a bridge route to the Norfolk & Western in western Virginia. From Middlesboro, the L&N used (and later acquired) the Southern’s (KCG&L) tunnel near the Kentucky/Tennessee state line at Cumberland Gap to reach Tennessee and then Virginia. For a few decades, this route formed the mainline of the L&N’s Cumberland Valley (CV) Division. The Middlesborough Railroad … Read more
The Southern Railway’s branch to Monarch, VA was a leg of the coal-producing St. Charles Branch west of Appalachia, VA. The L&N had (and CSX still has) trackage rights on the branch, so mine runs from both railroads worked the major mines on the line including Blue Diamond’s Monarch Mine, Benedict and Kemmerer Gem.
The N&W’s Dumps Creek Branch operated more like a self contained short line than a branch. In it’s 16 miles, the signaled branch served several large loaders of the Clinchfield Coal Company, a pair of the company’s large preparation plants and a power plant. It had its own yard at Carbo, VA with a small shop, and it operated big power on several trains daily hauling coal up and over the Sandy Ridge through a tunnel more than a mile long.