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Louisville and Nashville Railroad: Map, Rosters, History

Last revised: October 11, 2026

By: Adam Burns

The Louisville & Nashville was chartered in Kentucky on March 5, 1850, to build a railroad from Louisville toward Nashville. The first through train covered the 187 miles on October 27, 1859. From that stem the company reached the Ohio River at Cincinnati, the Mississippi at St. Louis and Memphis, the coalfields of eastern Kentucky, and the Gulf at Mobile, Pensacola, and New Orleans. In 1900 George H. Drury’s account gives it 3,200 route miles in thirteen states, and a main line of 921 miles from Cincinnati to New Orleans. The name it carried in its own histories was the Old Reliable.

Milton H. Smith ran the traffic and then the company from the 1880s until his death in 1921. The Atlantic Coast Line bought control in November 1902, and the L&N kept its own operation, its own locomotives, and its own mark, LN. The name lasted until December 29, 1982, when the railroad merged into the Seaboard System.

E6A No. 772 and FP7 No. 667 at Louisville on August 24, 1962. American-Rails.com collection.

On this page: At a glance · Charter and the first trains · St. Louis, the Gulf, and the coal · Milton H. Smith · The maps · 1902 and the Clinchfield · Shops and Big Emma · Passenger trains · The Dixie Line · Diesels · Family Lines and 1982

At a glance

The Louisville & Nashville logo. Author’s work.

Charter, and a train that went eight miles

The Kentucky charter of March 5, 1850, authorized a railroad between Louisville and the Tennessee state line in the direction of Nashville. Tennessee passed its own act on December 4, 1851. Tracklaying began at Ninth Street and Broadway in Louisville in May 1853. By 1855 the company had raised nearly $3 million. On August 25, 1855, the first train carried about 300 people eight miles out of the city at 15 miles an hour.

The through train came four years later. On October 27, 1859, Louisville and Nashville were joined by 187 miles of railroad that had cost $7,221,204.91. Scheduled trains began a few days after that. By 1861 the operated line stood at 269 miles. The Civil War put the road between two armies. It served both sides, took considerable damage, and came out of the war in good financial condition, which is the fact Charles B. Castner puts at the center of the company’s next thirty years.

Louisville & Nashville F7As, led by #812, are running the old Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis with a long freight train heading south through Kingston, Georgia in March, 1963. Photographer unknown. American-Rails.com collection

St. Louis, Birmingham, and a line across the marshes

Memphis came shortly after the war. By 1872 the L&N had enough track in Tennessee and Alabama to run a train from Louisville to Montgomery. Those lines helped make Birmingham. The first commercial steel made in that city was financed in part by the railroad.

The St. Louis gateway was a purchased railroad. Craig Sanders’s account of the Indiana lines gives the sequence. The Evansville, Henderson & Nashville was established in 1866, opened in April 1871, and passed to the St. Louis & Southeastern in 1872. The St. Louis & Southeastern, chartered in 1869, had opened from East St. Louis to Evansville late in 1871. In 1879 the L&N took the Kentucky and Tennessee divisions, Nashville to Henderson. On May 1, 1880, it took the Illinois and Indiana divisions, Henderson and Evansville to St. Louis. The operating gateway was East St. Louis. Castner still counts the reach as St. Louis in Missouri, which is why Missouri is one of the thirteen states.

The Gulf was the other ambition. In 1881, once the railroad had reached Mobile, it acquired a 140-mile line from Mobile to New Orleans, about nine miles of it trestles and bridges. The same year the Lebanon Branch was extended across the Tennessee line toward Jellico. In 1883 a 170-mile railroad opened between Pensacola and the Chattahoochee. In 1891 the L&N reached Norton, Virginia, and Atlanta. Castner counts 56 railroads acquired, leased, or constructed in the 1880s and 1890s.

Louisville & Nashville F7A #839 and a pair of RS3s head eastbound past Milepost 6 in St. Matthews, Kentucky with a mixed freight during February, 1962. Photographer unknown.

Coal paid for a great deal of that map. Between 1879 and 1881 new track in Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, and Illinois opened the western Kentucky field. In the early 1900s the road built into Hazard and Harlan. Two smaller lines came in 1909. In 1911 and 1912 more than 150 miles went in along the Cumberland River and the North Fork of the Kentucky River. Drury, whose chapter Castner also wrote, says coal was the top commodity, agricultural products second, manufactured goods third, and lumber and forest products fourth. Passengers were less than 10 percent of the revenue. Two-thirds of the coal originated in the Kentucky fields, and a sizeable share of it moved on the double-tracked line from Harlan through Corbin to Cincinnati.

North Carolina was a short reach. In 1905 the L&N acquired the Atlanta, Knoxville & Northern and with it the towns of Murphy, Kinsey, Ranger, and Culberson.

Milton H. Smith

Smith started as a local freight agent in Louisville just after the Civil War and was general freight agent within three years. On July 6, 1882, he became vice president and traffic manager. The reorganization of 1884 installed him as president. From March 9, 1891, until his death on February 22, 1921, he was the chief executive, a longer run in that office than any other head of the company. Castner’s figure for the whole career is nearly forty years.

Two maps of the same railroad

An official system map of the Louisville & Nashville, 1940. Author’s collection.

A system map for 1969. A few short branches are omitted. Author’s work.

By 1963 Kincaid A. Herr’s company history, in the form the University Press of Kentucky has kept in print, described more than 5,000 miles through the same thirteen states. That is a 1963 figure, before the Evansville–Chicago line, the Tennessee Central segment, and the Monon. Castner’s end-of-1971 figure, more than 6,574 miles of track, is the one in the glance.

November 1902, and a 999-year lease

In November 1902 the Atlantic Coast Line bought control of the Louisville & Nashville. Drury calls it a majority, with family connections at Atlanta and Montgomery. The L&N kept its officers, its shops, and the LN mark. The Coast Line and the Seaboard Air Line merged into the Seaboard Coast Line on July 1, 1967. The L&N remained a separate railroad beside it.

The mountain coal bridge was a joint lease. The Interstate Commerce Commission authorized the Atlantic Coast Line and the Louisville & Nashville to lease the Carolina, Clinchfield & Ohio on June 12, 1924. The indenture is dated October 16, 1924, a 999-year lease measured from May 11, 1923. The operating company was the Clinchfield Railroad, with its own locomotives and its own headquarters at Erwin. That story stays on the Clinchfield page.

South Louisville, and forty-two Big Emmas

In 1902 and 1905 the railroad replaced its Civil War-era downtown shops with a new plant at South Louisville: 35 buildings on 70 acres, and a 40-bay erecting and boiler shop. Between 1905 and 1923 those shops produced 400 engines. Millard F. Cox, superintendent of machinery, designed 282 of them, in four types with interchangeable parts: Pacifics, Consolidations, Mikados, and eight-wheel switchers. Other shops stood at Corbin, Decatur, Paris, and Etowah.

The steam policy was conservative. Basic wheel arrangements, modest power, and a preference for doubleheaders and helpers. Until 1900 the passenger engine was a 4-4-0 or a 4-6-0, and the freight engine a 2-6-0 or a 2-8-0. After 1920 the road adopted United States Railroad Administration designs and bought more than 330 USRA Pacifics, Mountains, Mikados, and eight-wheel switchers. It never rostered a ten-coupled engine or an articulated. The one departure into a larger boiler was the class M-1 2-8-4 of 1942–1949, forty-two locomotives. On the L&N they were Big Emmas. A suggested name, Cumberland, never caught on. The wheel arrangement has its own page, the 2-8-4.

No. 1977, one of the Lima engines of 1949, with an extra of empty coal hoppers near Winchester on the same day, June 5, 1956. Photographer unknown.

The M-1s worked the Kentucky, Cincinnati, Cumberland Valley, and Eastern Kentucky divisions. On the Eastern Kentucky they regularly rolled 9,500-ton coal trains, 124 cars, from Neon to DeCoursey, with helpers on the short grades at Jackson and Ravenna. They were the largest engine the railroad could use. Anything heavier would have meant longer turntables, longer roundhouse stalls, and longer shop bays. In 1940 the mechanical department had looked at a 4-8-4 for passenger trains north of Mobile. Weight restrictions already kept the 4-8-2s off the Mobile–New Orleans line, and a 4-8-4 would have been heavier still. The railroad bought sixteen EMD E6s instead, and at the same time ordered the first of the M-1s.

In 1948 an M-1 was tested against a three-unit EMD F3 on the Cincinnati–Louisville line. The F3s won. In 1949 the railroad decided to dieselize everything but the coalfield freights. Passenger service was fully dieselized by 1954. The M-1s were sidelined after 1956. The last steam operation was January 1957: J-4 Mikado No. 1882, leased to the subsidiary Carrollton Railroad in northern Kentucky. The NC&StL merger that August brought enough diesels that by 1959 the last 2-8-4s could be sold for scrap. The class-by-class grid, including Pacific No. 152, is the steam roster.

GP7 No. 417 at DeCoursey Yard, DeCoursey, Kentucky, on the morning of July 30, 1973. The yard was the north end of the Big Emma coal runs. American-Rails.com collection.

Humming Bird, Pan-American, and the trains around them

The L&N was a partner in the South Wind from 1940, a Chicago–Florida train whose cars belonged to a pool. Its own first postwar streamliners came out together. On Sunday, November 17, 1946, the Humming Bird was inaugurated between Cincinnati and New Orleans, the same day the L&N and the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis put the Georgian on between St. Louis and Atlanta. The Pan-American was already the named train on the Cincinnati–New Orleans route, dating from 1921. Castner’s list of the trains that were then updated includes the Pan-American, the Piedmont Limited, the Crescent, the Azalean, the Dixie Flyer, the Flamingo, and the Southland. The Dixie Flagler and the South Wind were the trains for which three heavy Pacifics were streamlined in 1940 and 1941.

The Humming Bird’s last southbound run was cut off at Birmingham on Thursday, January 9, 1969. Chicago had been a section off the Chicago & Eastern Illinois, and St. Louis a section of the L&N’s own. The train page has the consists. The Pan-American outlasted it. The photograph of the last departure, at Louisville Union Station on May 1, 1971, is on the Pan-American page.

E8As led by No. 797, eastbound on Westport Road in Louisville, about 1960. American-Rails.com collection.

E8A No. 784 and an E6A at Montgomery Union Station with train 4 for Cincinnati, late on the afternoon of May 16, 1964. American-Rails.com collection.

E6A No. 750 and E6A No. 770 in the Louisville yard, about 1964. American-Rails.com collection.

FP7 No. 604 and a GP9 at Louisville Union Station on the afternoon of November 12, 1966. American-Rails.com collection.

A pair of FP7s and an F7B, in passenger livery, at Atlanta Union Station on April 15, 1963. Roger Puta photo.

During the Second World War the L&N’s freight traffic rose about 80 percent and its passenger traffic more than 300 percent. About 6,900 employees went into the armed forces.

Dixie Line, then a merger

The Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis was the Dixie Line, and it was a separate railroad for a long time after the L&N owned the stock. On January 18, 1880, the L&N bought a controlling interest, 134,000 shares, through Vernon K. Stevenson, without the knowledge of Edmund W. Cole, who was then turned out of the presidency. The NC&StL kept its own operation. In 1890 it leased Georgia’s state-owned Western & Atlantic, the Atlanta–Chattanooga railroad of the General. Paducah and Memphis came in 1896 on lines leased from the L&N. Richard E. Prince puts the 1920s system at about 1,259 miles. Castner’s figure for what merged is some 1,200 miles, Memphis–Nashville–Chattanooga–Atlanta. The formal merger was August 30, 1957. The company page is the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis.

S4 No. 2359, FP7 No. 696, and an F7 at Etowah, Tennessee, in November 1967. Etowah had been an NC&StL shop town. Rick Burn photo.

F7A No. 806 in the original livery at Leawood Yard, Memphis, on July 26, 1966, on a transfer for Louisville. William White, Jr. photo.

From an HH660 to a mixed consist at London

The first diesels arrived in September 1939, Alco HH660 No. 10 and EMD SW1 No. 11. Cab units followed for the passenger trains and then for the manifests: E6s, E7s, E8s, Alco FA-2s and FPA-2s, and EMD F7s and FP7s. FP7s stayed in freight after the passenger assignments thinned. The secondhand cabs included FA-1s and FB-1s from the Lehigh & New England. Four GE 44-tonners, 3100–3103, came with the NC&StL. The serials, the order numbers, and the renumbers are the diesel roster.

FP7 No. 654 in freight service near Cottondale, Florida, on March 3, 1962. American-Rails.com collection.

FA-2 No. 310, an RS3, C628 No. 1402, and an F7A on a freight near London, Kentucky, on January 1, 1965. Photographer unknown.

FA-2 No. 355 with an F7B, a GP7, and an F7A at Anchorage, Kentucky, on September 26, 1964. Photographer unknown. American-Rails.com collection.

FA-2 No. 303, southbound past Sloss Furnaces in Birmingham in the summer of 1965. Marvin Clemons photo. American-Rails.com collection.

F7A No. 844 on a westbound manifest near Cartersville, Georgia, in the fall of 1970. American-Rails.com collection.

FA-1 No. 332 and FA-1 No. 336, formerly Lehigh & New England 701 and 705, about 1963. American-Rails.com collection.

RS3 No. 138 in experimental paint applied at South Louisville Shops, East Louisville, in July 1969. Builder serial 80681. Acquired in 1954. Richard Wallin photo.

Three more lines came in at the end. On June 6, 1969, the L&N bought the Chicago & Eastern Illinois line from Woodland Junction to Evansville, 206 miles, plus joint trackage rights from Woodland into Chicago. The Missouri Pacific’s control of the C&EI, dated May 12, 1967, had carried an Interstate Commerce Commission condition that the Evansville line be sold to the L&N. The same year the L&N took a 131-mile piece of the Tennessee Central, Nashville to Crossville. In 1971 it merged the Monon, 573 miles between Louisville and Chicago and a second entrance to the Great Lakes. The merger date used here is July 31, 1971. The Monon was already inside the L&N. It was a separate story from the Family Lines marketing name.

Family Lines gray, then December 29, 1982

Castner says the Seaboard Coast Line had held 35 percent of the L&N’s stock for many years. In 1971 it bought the rest, and the L&N became a wholly owned subsidiary of Seaboard Coast Line Industries. From 1972 through 1982 that holding company marketed the Seaboard Coast Line, the Louisville & Nashville, the Clinchfield, the Georgia Railroad, and the West Point Route as the Family Lines. Each company kept its own mark. Family Lines paint dates from 1977. The L&N’s own GP38-2s 4050–4144 left the builder in the railroad’s colors. The later hoods in that image included GP38-2s 6011–6044, GP40-2s 6600–6616, the C30-7s, the B23-7s, and the MP15s. CSX Corporation, joining Seaboard Coast Line Industries with the Chessie System, dates from November 1, 1980.

On December 29, 1982, the Seaboard Coast Line and the Louisville & Nashville merged into the Seaboard System. The Clinchfield operating company ended on January 1, 1983. CSX Transportation began on July 1, 1986. The LN mark came off the locomotives. The main line from Cincinnati through Louisville, Nashville, and Birmingham to New Orleans was still the railroad underneath.

Alco cab units, four more frames

FA-2s led by No. 355, in as-delivered livery, about 1955. Location and photographer are unrecorded.

FA-2 No. 355, about 1960. Location and photographer are unrecorded.

FA-2 No. 356 and other power, about 1960. Location and photographer are unrecorded.

FA-2 No. 361 and F7B No. 706 at Louisville on November 6, 1965. Photographer unknown.

Related reading on American-Rails.com

• Louisville & Nashville steam roster · Louisville & Nashville diesel roster
• Humming Bird · Pan-American · Georgian · Flamingo · South Wind · Crescent · Dixie Flagler
• Atlantic Coast Line · Seaboard Coast Line · Family Lines · Clinchfield · Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis · Monon · Western & Atlantic
• CSX Transportation · West Point Route · Kentucky Railway Museum · 2-8-4 locomotives · 4-6-2 locomotives

Sources

• Charles B. Castner, “Louisville & Nashville Railroad, Historical Overview,” Louisville & Nashville Railroad Historical Society, lnrr.org/History.aspx. Charter, the 1855 and 1859 trains, the $7,221,204.91 cost, Smith’s career in outline, the Gulf and coal extensions, the 1957 NC&StL miles, the 1969 lines, the Monon’s 573 miles, more than 6,574 miles of track at the end of 1971, the 35 percent stock holding, and the subsidiary year 1971
• George H. Drury, Guide to North American Steam Locomotives, revised edition, Louisville & Nashville, pp. 201–204. Chapter by Charles B. Castner. User photographs in Downloads\LN_Steam, October 2026. The 3,200 miles and the 921-mile main line, South Louisville, the USRA purchase, Big Emma, and January 1957
• Kincaid A. Herr, The Louisville & Nashville Railroad, 1850–1963, University Press of Kentucky. The Old Reliable, and more than 5,000 miles through thirteen states by 1963. Maury Klein’s History of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad (Macmillan, 1972; University Press of Kentucky, 2003) for Smith as vice president and traffic manager in 1882 and president in the 1884 reorganization. The March 9, 1891, and February 22, 1921, dates are the stockholder record Herr’s readers have used for the chief-executive years
• Craig Sanders, Limiteds, Locals, and Expresses in Indiana, 1838–1971, as cited on the previous company page, for the Evansville, Henderson & Nashville and the May 1, 1880, St. Louis line
• Tennessee Encyclopedia, the NC&StL entry, for the January 18, 1880, purchase of 134,000 shares through Vernon K. Stevenson. Richard E. Prince, Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway: History and Steam Locomotives, for control in 1880, the 1890 Western & Atlantic lease, and about 1,259 miles at the 1920s peak. David Ibata, Trains, July 1, 2024, for separate operation after 1880 and the Dixie Line name
• Chicago & Eastern Illinois Historical Society, for the June 6, 1969, purchase of the Woodland Junction–Evansville line and the May 12, 1967, Missouri Pacific control with the sale condition
• Carolana, for the 1905 Atlanta, Knoxville & Northern and the North Carolina towns
• Locked pages on this site: Atlantic Coast Line, for November 1902; Clinchfield, for the June 12 and October 16, 1924, lease; Family Lines, for 1972–1982, the December 29, 1982 merger, Family Lines paint from 1977, and GP38-2s 6011–6044 in that paint with 4050–4144 in the railroad’s own colors; Humming Bird, for November 17, 1946, and January 9, 1969
• Trains CSX family tree, for the August 30, 1957, NC&StL merger and the July 31, 1971, Monon merger

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    Nov 04, 26 09:05 AM

    
    VIA Rail completed a four-year modernization of its Toronto Maintenance Centre on November 2, 2026. The Government of Canada invested $310 million. The shop supports 32 Corridor trainsets and will sus…

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40. Brightline Suspends Orlando Service for High Water

    Nov 04, 26 09:02 AM

    
    Brightline suspended trains between Orlando and West Palm Beach on November 2, 2026, because of high water in Brevard County. A later post the same day kept the suspension until 2:00 p.m. on November…

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41. Hiawatha West Draws Federal Funding Toward Madison

    Nov 04, 26 08:58 AM

    
    Amtrak welcomed a CRISI selection for Hiawatha West, extending Chicago-Milwaukee service toward Madison, Watertown, and Pewaukee. Wisconsin said on October 16 that the award is over $218 million.

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42. Seattle's Train Maintenance Facility Opens for Airo Trains

    Nov 04, 26 08:56 AM

    
    Amtrak cut the ribbon October 23, 2026, on a $250 million Seattle shop for Airo trains on the Cascades route. The building came in on time and $50 million under budget and opens in phases through the…

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43. Aberdeen Carolina and Western Wins a $19.9 Million Grant

    Nov 04, 26 08:46 AM

    
    The Aberdeen Carolina and Western Railway won a $19.9 million CRISI grant for about 30 miles of welded rail in Montgomery and Stanly counties. The railroad and NCDOT are putting up a 52 percent match…

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44. Alco "C628" Locomotives: Roster, Data Sheet, Specs

    Nov 03, 26 07:57 PM

    
    Alco Century C628: 2,750 hp C-C road switcher, 186 built from December 1963 to December 1968. Production roster, specs, and where the high-hood Norfolk and Western units went.

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45. Santa Fe Railroad (AT&SF): Diesel Roster (All-Time)

    Nov 03, 26 12:54 PM

    
    Santa Fe diesel locomotives, each new frame once, with construction numbers and order numbers. The counted total is 3,964, from the 1935 boxcabs through the SD75Ms.

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46. Metra Holiday Trains Return on Six Lines

    Nov 03, 26 11:40 AM

    
    Metra holiday trains will run on six lines in December, with tickets on sale at noon November 16 for $10. The Chicago Transit Authority and Pace are fielding holiday buses in the same regional announc…

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47. Amtrak Encourages Early Booking for Thanksgiving

    Nov 03, 26 11:39 AM

    
    Amtrak is asking travelers to book Thanksgiving trips early. The railroad carried more than 1.2 million customer trips over the 2025 holiday and expects another record, with extra Northeast Regional s…

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48. Channel Pacific Keeps Its West Sacramento Exemption

    Nov 03, 26 11:26 AM

    The Surface Transportation Board denied a West Sacramento challenge to Channel Pacific Railroad’s exemption to operate about 2,132 feet of terminal track. The exemption took effect in June 2026.

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49. DART Marks One Year of the Silver Line

    Nov 03, 26 11:22 AM

    
    DART marked one year of Silver Line service linking seven North Texas cities and DFW Airport. The 26-mile regional rail line opened October 25, 2025, as the agency’s first rail expansion in a decade.

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50. Massachusetts Breaks Ground for the Berkshire Flyer

    Nov 03, 26 10:07 AM

    Massachusetts broke ground October 29 in Pittsfield on track work meant to support permanent seasonal Berkshire Flyer service. MassDOT has $31 million for the project in its 2027-2031 capital plan.

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