BEREA —
Lawrence Hensley of Taylor Mill, Ky., worked 38 years as a yardman in northern Kentucky for the Louisville & Nashville (L&N) Railroad and its successor, the CSX line.
Jim Gerardt, who now lives in Berea, put in nearly 30 years with the two companies, starting in northern Kentucky as a switchman before moving in to be a brakeman, conductor and then engineer.
Both men met when they worked at the DeQuincy switch yards in northern Kentucky, but had not seen each other again until Saturday when the old L&N Depot, now the Berea Welcome Center, hosted its annual L&N Day.
“Yes, we worked together,” Hensley said of Geardt. “I helped get him started, and then he left me, just when I needed him most,” he said with a laugh.
Hensley wore a blue cap with the old L&N logo with white letters on a red background Saturday. Gerardt showed up wearing a white and yellow cap from the Chessie System, the successor to the Cheasepeake and Ohio (C&O).
Gerardt offered to trade, but Hensley declined, remaining loyal to the L&N.
L&N Day, scheduled for the first Saturday in June, at the last brick station still standing on the rail line between Cincinnati and Knoxville, is a time for old railroaders to share the glory days of the iron horse with a new generation.
Hensley and Jim Cummins of Corbin, two former L&N employees, were set up to explain and sell railroad memorabilia as many parents brought young children to the old depot to see the displays, talk to collectors and wave to engineers who all slowed their trains Saturday as they passed by.
Other vendors had train watches more than a century old as well as new model train sets.
Cummins, who started his railroad career as a passenger ticket agent in Berea, and Hensley seem to enjoy talking about their railroad experiences and collections as much as they did selling things.
Both had collections of lanterns, oil cans, caps and old employee magazines. Hensley also had some old emergency telephones that once were placed on poles at intervals along the tracks.
Train staff would use the phones to report trouble before the days of radios and cell phones, he said.
Cummins also had an office phone with an accordion-type extension that allowed the set to be stretch across a room.
In addition to listening to the old-timers tell their tales, the children also got to see several model trains set up in the welcome center lobby and side rooms. They also had an opportunity to ride a train in the welcome center parking lot by the Berea-based Central Kentucky Miniature Railroad Company.
The CKMR sets up for special events, including birthday parties, said its owner, Matthew Cole.
“That’s the only train ride you’ll get in Berea now, unless you hop on a freight,” Hensley said.
“Hobos” still manage to get free rides on freight trains, he said, even if not as many in Great Depression years of the 1930s when an estimated 35 million people, including women and children, "rode the rails.”
Hensley was well-versed in the work of a University of Minnesota sociologist who made an exhaustive study of the hobos who defied danger and arrest during the Depression to ride the trains for free.
Bill Robinson can be reached at brobinson@
richmondregister.com or at 624-6622.
Local News
Related Photos
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Jim Cummins of Cobin, a former L&N Railroad employee who began his career as a ticket agent in Berea, shows an old train latern to Tim Anderson and his son, Dustin, 2, during L&N Day on Saturday. The welcome center is a former L&N Depot, the last such brick structure still standing between Cincinnati and Knoxville. Bill Robinson
A reunion for old railroaders
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