Visit to New Haven

This may not be the New Haven you were expecting, but on a recent trip to Kentucky we visited the Kentucky Railway Museum in the town of New Haven.  Since this was a weekday, no trains were running, but the museum was open for self-guided tours of the property.

The main building is a substantial brick structure, the original L&N depot in the town.  The interior has been completely revamped for museum purposes, but the building is certainly well maintained.

Outside the excursion train is stored, which currently only operates on Saturdays.

Inside is the gift shop and a number of displays of various sorts.  There's a video presentation which we did not have time to watch.  The people on duty inside the station were friendly and helpful.

And there is a substantial model train display, including a large operating HO layout.

Just one of the many displays:

Another view of the passenger train:

There is a long umbrella roof over one track in the yards, but that's the only covered storage...

Except for the shop building, which is fenced off and not open to visitors.  The L&N Pacific is partly disassembled and stored in the shop, I was told.

And more of the museum's collection appears to be stored on sidings along the main line.  Since we were short on time, we didn't go any farther.

There's a fairly wide range of steam-road equipment of all sorts.  I'm not even sure exactly what that first item is.  It reminds me of the underframe of an American Flyer caboose.

We talked a little to a volunteer who was working on the cab of this L&N 0-8-0.

He is in the process of replacing the tongue-and-groove ceiling in the cab.

And on other days he works on this big hook!

Finally, an item of great interest was the new turntable which has been recently installed (in the last three years or so).  I was told they now have it operating under its own power, although there's only one track connected to it so far.

Because of the lay of the land, the turntable "pit" has its floor pretty much at ground level, with the walls rising above the ground.  That must have saved quite a bit in excavation costs, but as a result a huge amount of fill will be required to add more tracks and the eventual roundhouse.  You can get a better idea of this from the picture above (the one with the "caboose frame").

Much of the fill that has already gone into this project came from the recent construction of a nearby distillery.  Some people have all the luck!

Be that as it may, we enjoyed our visit.  It's not far from several other attractions and historic sites, such as Lincoln's birthplace.  And it's very close to Optimist Park -- there's got to be a message to that somehow.