All Aboard!

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Why do I love trains? I guess it goes back to my childhood. My aunt and uncle lived right next to an eight-track railroad line that ran through our old neighborhood. My uncle and I would sit on the porch and watch the trains go by. I loved seeing all the different logos on the sides of the boxcars. From an early age I knew the caboose was the final car on the train. That took me a few miles south of Louisville today, to the Kentucky Railway Museum in New Haven. There are more train museums than trains anymore. It’s sad that railroad as a transportation method is all but dead in the US. I watch videos of passenger rail service in Europe and my chin hits the floor. All we have here is the government-operated Amtrak. The trains they have on display are in various stages of repair or disrepair. One highlight was a segregated passenger car from the Jim Crow days, with the luggage storage in the middle separating the seating for black and white passengers. The car, made from wood and in need of restoration, is on the National Registry of Historic Places for its significance in the history of segregation in America. We got to walk by a number of engines, boxcars, and passenger cars. Only two were actually open to go in: a short-distance one-car train from the Frankfort & Cincinnati Railroad, and a caboose (which was the office and living quarters for the conductor). At the end of the tour was a room with a huge model railroad layout (I didn’t know until recently that there are a wide variety of sizes of model trains, tracks, and displays), finely detailed (if you want to see something amazing, watch a model train video on You Tube, so you can see the labor and detail put into the “hobby”), conductor’s uniforms, information about the female and African-American contributions to railroad history, and other memorabilia. Admission was $5. It is not for physically limited people (walking is a major part of the tour, which includes gravel, railroad tracks, uneven surfaces, and climbing into railroad cars). However, if you are a railroad enthusiast or just want to know more about the transportation of the past, it’s a good place to visit. Unfortunately, it’s quite out of the way. New Haven is well off the interstate. Although it’s well marked along the back roads, it might not be everyone’s cup of tea. It certainly was mine, though!