The Southern Railway,
a.k.a. the Queen and Crescent,
a.k.a. The Cincinnati,
New Orleans, and Texas Pacific Railroad ( C.N.O. & T. P.)
a.k.a., now, the Norfolk Southern
The C.N.O. & T.P. was formally opened on July 22, 1877
The first train ran the day before. This is it on that prior day in the picture.
The newspaper on the day before the first run is here, and a reporter's story of the first trip to Chattanooga is here.
The Cincinnati Commercial gave a really detailed account of the run from Cincinnati to Chattanooga.
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| Ludlow Depot | ||
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| Ludlow Roundhouse | ||
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| Engine House | ||
Freight House (note RR bridge)
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Southern Rail Road in Ludlow, 1910
Notice St. Boniface in card on right.
The houses nearest the railroad in the right hand pic are on Cherry Street. But the
railroad bought the houses, and the street, and expanded, and that was the end of Cherry Street.
Note the lagoon in upper right of the picture on the left.
In 1887, Ludlow railroad workers go on strike for better hours. Instead of 10 hours a day,
6 days a week, they wanted 10 hours a day, 5 and a half days a week. Read about it here.
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| Steam engines burned coal to make steam, and coal tenders needed to replenish coal supplies. This is the Ludlow coaling facility. from Facebook posts by Harold Tucker | Coal Tower, c. 1915 | The other thing you need to make steam is water. Water towers here are 1914. | ||
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| The Engineering News-Record chronicled the rebuilding of the “Horse-Run” Trestle in 1905. |
The C. N. O. & T. P. Trestle, c. 1910 |
The Ohio River railroad bridge, c. 1880's (Keary Henkener writes the he believes that antenna-like structure was was part of the electric system that powered the operating mechanism for the swing span section of the bridge. ) |
The Southern Railway crosses Pleasant Run
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| The Pullman Shops at Ludlow |
Ludlow's Southern Depot, 1949 |
Ludlow Depot, from 1973 |
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| The MO Signal Tower, 1914 | The MO Signal Tower, c. 1935 | |
| There was an MS interlocking tower at the north end of Ludlow, but the MO tower was at the southern end, just north of the big trestle | ||
Ludlow Engine House Door
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| Oil House | Ludlow Railroad Scenes | |
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| The Southern Railway Bridge in the 1913 Flood | Steaming into Ludlow | With the Island Queen From a Facebook post by Will Lack |
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| Note construction on the Ludlow side | Southern Bridge Across the Ohio | |
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| The Ludlow railroad buildings pretty much all burned down and were rebuilt after this devastating fire in 1887. | |||
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| Southern Railway Bridge from the River, c. WWII | |
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| Ludlow Railroad Bridge, c. 1889 | A construction picture. Note the “false work” i.e. supporting beams. |
The Ohio Side of the Bridge | |
With the Island Queen
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| Southern Railway Bridge. all from the Ludlow side. Notice the round pier on the Ludlow side. This bridge was replaced in 1922-1923 to add a second track, and to accommodate a heavier load. The old bridge - from 1877 - swiveled . That is, it could pivot on the top of that round pier to let taller boats go thru in high water. It was rarely used. 1929 saw the end of that feature. |
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| from Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, April 6, 1878 |
1885 | Kentucky Side | ||
C. 1910
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| Southern Railroad Bridge, Ludlow, 1916 |
Southern Railway Bridge | Southern Railway Bridge, looking North |
C. 1937 | |
| Read about the H. F. Frisbee crashing into the Southern Railway bridge in 1888, here. | ||||
| “Ludlow had a narrow escape from being blown off the map one day last week. Two freight trains on the Q. & C. collided at the depot there, and in one of them was a car loaded with dynamite, but, fortunately, for considerable property and many lives, the car carrying the explosive was not wrecked and the jar it received was not sufficient to explode the dynamite.” The Boone County Recorder July 31, 1907 | “The first iron for the Southern Railroad has been laid during the past week on the tramway at the foot of Kenner street. There is about one hundred yards finished.” The Ludlow Reporter, January 23, 1875. |
| Standard Oil's storage warehouses at railroad burn in 1892. story here. |
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| “Last Monday was an important day in the history of Ludlow. The first shovel-full of dirt was taken from the ground surveyed for the first pier of the Southern Railroad bridge on the Kentucky side. The affair was in keeping with all the actions of the Trustees, there being no ostentatious display of bunting and rhetoric, and if any of our citizens were present, it was by chance, as there was no public announcement of the fact that there was to be a jubilee over the stirring up of sacred soil. The attorney for the road turned over a few handfuls of dirt with a shovel, made some brief remarks appropriate to the occasion, after which the party, including some Cincinnati reporters, repaired to Henry's and partook of the beverage 'which exhilarates but does not intoxicate.'” from the Ludlow Reporter, April 3, 1875. | |
| Fatal railroad accident in 1886. | Labor Union strike in 1894, at this site. |
| Discussion of the route layout from 1874. | |
| A railroad passenger learns in 1897 that there are some unscheduled stops a train will sometimes absolutely make. | Wreck of a box car loaded with dynamite. |
| The Southern Railway Historical Society is here. | Railroad worker told in 1908 to keep sleeping on the job, but there's a catch. |
| Cincinnati Engineers 1922 report on the “new” Southern Railroad Bridge. | 1914 Ludlow train wreck. |
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| Southern Railway's storage building in the Ludlow rail yard, outside and inside. | ||
| Effort's are underway to restore the storage building. Details, and a history of the building, are at this site. | ||
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| Crane | Flat Car | Gondola | Box Cars |
| Various railroad cars in Ludlow, c. 1915 | |||
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| The Steamer Alice Brown, on the Cincinnati Riverfront, under the Southern Bridge, looking upstream toward West Covington, c. 1880. A few words on the Alice Brown,here, and more pictures of her are at this site. | Shanty boat under the railroad bridge. |
The Ice of 1917-1918 was horrendous. This is February 1918. |
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For Ludlow's 100th anniversary celebration, the Southern Railroad brought in the Best Friend of Charleston. June 28, 1964
In 1962, The General (Wikipedia), of Civil War fame, came thru town.
From a Facebook post by Wayne Lohmoeller
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| Railfan excursion behind N&W 611 crosses Sleepy Hollow, September 10, 1983 |
A new type of railcar comes to Ludlow, 1924 |
Southern Railroad Bridge US Army, Chief of Engineers, 1934 |
Fresh out of the Ludlow Shops in 1929, this is #6479. from l to r, that's
R. H. Crissinger, engineer; Walden, master mechanic; Tom Rohan, road foreman
of engines; Roy Schultz; and George Clavel, roundhouse foreman; unknown; and
H. Eilerman, pipe shop foreman.
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A KS-1 class Consolidation 2-8-0, #6214 in Ludlow. Built by Baldwin in 1907; shown here in Ludlow, October 6, 1935.From a Facebook post by Taylor Rush |
#6399 was a pusher locomotive based in Ludlow to help trains up the hill. Not sure where this picture was taken. From a Facebook post by David Morse |
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| Believed to be in Ludlow Thanks to Leslie Leeke, Sr. for this one. |
This is a rare one. It's an articulated steam engine in Ludlow, something the Southern had very few of. Read more about what an articulated is, here. Thanks to Leslie Leek, Sr. for this one. |
1974
Photograph by E. Donald Smith
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| Southern Steamer 612, in Ludlow from a Robert Fitters post on Facebook |
Southern #4844 from a Facebook post by Chris Mayhew |
Ludlow Switch Engines |
A photo by Brad McClelland, September 7, 1981
Coming in to Ludlow
From a Facebook post by Collin
McLaughlin II, who notes that it's a ”heck of a pull from the Ohio side, but like a roller coaster coming from the Kentucky side.”
Coming into the Cincinnati side, 1986
From a Facebook post by Steven M. Geisler
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| Southern Railway GP38-2 #5080, 1984 | The Southern snakes downhill into Ludlow. |
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| November 7, 1982. The first trestle. |
November 20, 1988. Conrail 6000 leads a NS train into Ludlow. |
April 23, 1972. Diesels waiting to push trains up to Erlanger. |
| These images are copyrighted photos by Don Faris. Clicking on the thumbnail will take you to railpics.net, where the original resides. |
This pic is a copyrighted photos by George Hamlin. Clicking on the thumbnail will take you to railpics.net, where the original resides. |
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The sugar train comes up the Southern into Cincinnati.
A near complete set of pictures of the Southern Railway Cabooses (Caboosi?) is at this site.
CNO&TP Route Map, c. 1900
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| Ludlow to Erlanger | Erlanger to Bracht | Bracht to Mason | Mason to Sadieville | Georgetown | Lexington |
| from a 1922 brochure of the Southern Railway System, a.k.a., the C. N. O. & T. P. (Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific) | |||||
Our page with pictures of Southern Railway steam and diesel locomotives - not necessarily Northern Kentucky - is here.
A much better collection of Southern Railway steam and diesels is at this site.
