Am spending a week in Clarksdale at a blues festival. Is there any chance of catching any railway activity in the area? I guess most action is up at Memphis though I 've fallen over some shortlines in the past e.g. at Greenville.
Cheers
Mark
Mark,
The IC/CN Memphis-New Orleans main line is at Marks a few miles east. My MS map shows three MSOR lines at Clarksdale, but I suspect they see little activity. Vaughn is well south on line between Memphis and Canton. The north end of this is active to at least Grenada, which has a large old brick depot, while the south end is inactive last I knew. There is nothing but the track left at Vaughn.
The Casey Jones Museum is in the old IC depot at Water Valley, which was Jones's home terminal when he died. It has some neat stuff and some junk. Check the internet for days and times it is open. I would call ahead to assure someone will be there as it is a one or two man labor of love place.
Mac McCulloch
Got a few decent shots :-)
MSDR is operated by Columbus and Greenville. There are 3 operating locos 802, 803 and 6226. There was also an unidentified light blue loco (ALCO?) out of use. Saw 2 of these switching some tanks in downtown Clarksdale. That was the only move I saw during the week, though the connection to Swan Lake clearly sees some use. Suspect the main use of the railroad is car storage as there are plenty of grain and tank cars in the Clarksdale area.
Also picked up a couple of CN mixed consists passing at Swan Lake.
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