Help with L&N - ICG location

[DMNolan]

I am helping a friend design a HO scale layout based on the L&N. He wants to include an interchange with the ICG. The layout also will feature a steel mill and coal branch. Can anybody suggest a location on the L&N that might have these features? I was thinking Birmingham, AL (but wasn't sure if the ICG made it to Birmingham); Memphis (but I don't know of a steel mill in the area); or somewhere up on the ex-Monon tracks.

[dehusman]

Having a coal mine next to a steel mill is pretty improbable.

The IC and L&N had a junction in Belleville IL, there was a steel mill in Granite City (E St Louis) and there were coal mines on the IC in Southern IL.

The IC met the L&N at Birmingham, AL, Evansville, IL, Central City, Elizabethtown, Henderson, Owensboro, Providence and West Point, KY.

Dave H.

[DMNolan]

Dave,

That is what I was looking for. I didn't mean to imply that the coal mine next to the steel mill, only that the layout will have a steel mill on one level and a coal branch on another. They will be separate.

Mark

[Anonymous]

Make that Evansville, Indiana, and don't forget Louisville, KY. There are still a few IC bridges down by the river in Louisville...Not for long though. The L&N met with C&O, Pennsy, Monon, Southern, Illinois Central, B&O, and NYC in Louisville either by interchange, trackage rights, independent routes, or by means of the Kentucky & Indiana Transfer Railroad. Also, by the time of the L&N, N.C.&St.L merger, L&N would have met IC in Paducah, KY along with C.B.&Q and Gulf, Mobile, & Ohio. The Paducah/Western KY area is great for modeling with a lot of coal to barge and quarry operations. I hope at least a little of this is helpful. I grew up in Louisville and lived outside of Paducah on Kentucky and Barkley lake for a while.