Growing up in the hills and hollows (it's pronounced "hollers") of southeastern Kentucky, trains (almost exclusively hauling coal) were an everyday part of life. We used the old ties to build bridges and retaining walls, could forecast the weather by the train's horn (if you heard it, it was gonna rain in the next 30 minutes), and had the worst traffic jams the town has ever known when it would roll through town at quitting time. As a child I was more than a little fascinated by trains and would watch them whenever I could. I was always disappointed by the fact that they never seemed to have a caboose. It wasn't until much later, when I'd gone off to college and moved out of the area that I finally saw one in action.
These rusting relics of another age I found seemingly abandoned on a siding behind a tomato sauce factory in Louisville, Kentucky. Their derelict and decrepit state seemed an accurate reflection of the current state of the railroads, at least in the area I grew up in. The tipples (not the drink sort) are closed now and the trains don't run anymore and it all seems to be slowly fading into history. Nostalgia aside, I would still cheerfully accept the end of all the trains and railroads in eastern Kentucky if we could just get our mountaintops back.
On a side note, Billy Bragg and Joe Henry's cover of "The L&N Don't Stop Here Anymore" makes for excellent musical accompaniment for this post.