Steam & Excursion > Flood damages Kentucky Railway Museum

K R M suffered serious damage from heavy rain on May 1st and 2nd. Water was over 3 ft in the Model Train center / crew room area. Multiple washouts on the main line total over 2,000 feet.
Fortunately no cars or engines were damaged, 152 is safe and sound, but it will likely be awhile before the track is back

galveston museum totaled kentucky hurt move these museums out of the flood plains or elevate there structures or something, like the say along the red river
"we gonna rebuild"

Kentucky Railway Museum owns over 16 miles of track (part of the ex L&N Lebanon branch). It would be hard to find another location thats available. Since the line basically follows the Rolling Fork river, water is somthing that is a necessary evil.

too bad they can't build a branch to the top of a hill to shove the equipment when it rains

Odd thing is that the KRM moved from their location of 25 years ago because of flooding. It was between River Road and the Ohio River. You don't have to know a lot about the area to put those two together but you can figure that there is probably some flooding in the area. The area they moved to after that was high and dry but the museum could only run about a half mile and then the lease on the property was terminated when the land became too valuable to lease it to a railway museum. The L&N (or CSX) was abandoning the Boston to Lebanon line at about the same time. The KRM was able to purchase it. The line is just about as flat as Kansas. It follows the Rolling Fork River along most of the route, or at least the flood plane for that river. The high spot is where the tracks cross the Bluegrass Parkway.

I may have a detail or two wrong but you get the general idea. Several events for the next few weeks have been canceled. Visit their website at http://www.kyrail.org/ Admission is half price for this weekend.

John

I understand the foot or so of rain came with no warning.

KRM will be operating trips the weekend of May 15th. None of the rolling stock was damaged in the flood. Because the flood did wash out bridges 6 and 7 north of New Haven(that's railroad north, compass west), forthcoming trips will be run south of New Haven to Gethsemane.
The signficant damage on the museum property was confined to the Model Railroad center which had 41 inches of water in it. Some of the display layouts are severely damaged; some artifacts in the building were damaged.
Today (Saturday) was a fairly typical workday at the Museum -- work continued on readying K&N 152 for operation, car work in preparion for Thomas weekends in June but with the added work of cleanup around the site and in the Model RR center.