Nostalgia & History > C&O Stevens Yard - Silver Grove KY 1965

C&O Stevens Yard. Back in the days when you could do this kind of thing. My Father sold Fire Equipment and befriended the Chief of the Silver Grove Volunteer Fire Dept.

         It didn't hurt that Art was Roundhouse Foreman at Stevens, and he invited my Dad and me to visit on weekends (no officials around) and hostle and run engines to set up the yard for the following week.

        1) Here are a few images of interest from this period. AS-616 5535 and a sister sit at Coney, the West end of Stevens where the 'passenger' main bypassed the freight yard.
        2-3)We're about to take this string of power led by SD18 1808 to the other end of the yard for a train. The little grinder in the photos is yours truly, and here we are doing 15MPH down the Thoroughfare (note the strange location of the horn valve).

        4)Here's a cab view from an AS616 dragging a string of hoppers.

         5)Another view of a little snipper at the controls of GP9 5936 at a blistering 15 MPH.

         6)The last view was taken from the pedestrian overpass that was a landmark at Stevens. It provided direct access to the roundhouse, and we see the C&O when coal was king. An AS616 in the distance is on the Thoroughfare track. The passenger main is to the right in this last image beyond the strings of loaded hoppers.

         These photos are a combination of Tri-X Pan, Ektachrome and Kodacolor color negatives scanned and color-corrected. The camera was a Carl Zeiss f2.8 1960 Rolleiflex 2-1/4" x 2-1/4" twin lens reflex, my Dad's favorite.

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Images 4 through 6

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Really appreciate the great photos.  You certainly got an early start!
ALLEN

great stuff ... with my pop working for the railroad as a cndr and mom dropping him off and picking him up you can say i have been around the railroad while i was still in the womb ... as i got older he would take me to work with him ... your photos bring back memories of myself at the throttle in the cab of yard goats ... only difference was you and your pop had the foresight to take photos ... i wasn't that smart, so now all i have are fading mental memories from those years ...

• Awesome......