I disagree with the underlying assumption. I firmly believe there is a "magic circle" of a 1 hour drive from city centers. You want to be near the edge of that circle, outside the "comfortable commute" circle (which brings sprawl, encroachment and NIMBYs) but on the easy side of the "acceptable daytrip" circle.

They are in exactly the right place for Louisville and Lexington. The problem is those markets don't have 2 million people between them.

That is very true.

Also, there is a museum operation that is itself rising from the doldrums in the Lexington area, plus the Corman dinner train. Lot of stuff in a small market area.

As a veteran "tourist railroader", my eyes and ears pick up on anything related to tourist railroads.

As a resident of Louisville for the past ten years, I have seen nothing anywhere in any media that indicates that there is any tourist railroad nearby. The RJC dinner train is somewhat known, but few folks that are "general public" are aware that there are TWO railroads nearby, not including Versailles and Stearns.

That is bad.

Granted I have not been "looking" for information such as brochures, tour guides, etc. as in planning a vacation, but am simply commenting that the general public does not know, based on my experience. I have friends with children who know my RR history and ask where they can go to take a train ride.

I'm pointing the finger at myself as well, as the former manager of a Kentucky tourist railroad.

There is work (advertising) to be done. It doesn't matter if the train is pulled by mules and is pink or green.

Also, from what I have gathered, the general public is not initially interested in the historic nature of the equipment. That is unfortunate, but can be resolved by educating the public onsite. The public is interested in the "train ride experience", meaning they want a nice experience, on a clean train, and get what they perceive as a historic experience (greeting the conductor, the engineer, etc.) and hopefully seeing some nice scenery. If John Q Public is on a ratty train with dirty windows and uncomfortable, and sees crappy scenery, then Mr. Public will have a bad impression no matter what.

Please don't take this the wrong way, as I am leading the pack in saying that steam power pulling proper coaches in proper paint is what a target is, but there are other considerations as well.

Hello all! I would like to make a comment that although this account is sponsored under my friend Swade (explaining the account name) it is considered our group's account. I am the person who started the group and my name is Hugh. I have been in the hospital for a few months and have not been aware that some members of our group have been posting on these things, including this site and Facebook. I would like to clear up any concerns and mention that Swade was not the actual person posting these comments. We have since removed these people who may've posted untrue comments and concerns about the museum from our party and I do apologize.

Sorry I'm late for this, but the original conversation got buried and only resurfaced.

Actually both of you are somewhat correct. Distance wise, KRM in New Haven isn't that far from Louisville, within Mr. MacDowell's "Magic circle." New Haven is certainly far outside any projected urban sprawl from Louisville. It's not even located in the "growth" area of Nelson County.

The problem, however, are roads. New Haven isn't located near any interstate highway. Actually, Boston, Kentucky, where the excursion trains are turned, is within 5 miles of I-65 on a fairly good, wide, two-lane road with broad shoulders. This highway, Kentucky highway 52 becomes curvy and narrow between Boston and New Haven. The only other way to approach New Haven from Louisville is through Bardstown, which involves its own trip off of I-65, or all the way down 31-E, which is a really long drive thanks to suburban sprawl and about a million stoplights from Louisville south.

So, as the operation currently exists, people from the population-intensive Louisville area probably drive down I-65 to the Lebanon Junction Exit, then drive another 15 or so miles to New Haven to ride an excursion train that turns about 4 miles from the exit they got off on. If you come from Lexington, you probably take the Bluegrass Parkway, which has a "New Haven-Boston" Exit that is probably 3-4 miles from Boston, but a lot further away from New Haven. In other words, you are hauling people back closer to where they started from.

Louisville, for a city of its size, is fairly sprawled, with more sprawl on the east and south ends. Depending on where you come from, getting to KRM in New Haven for volunteer work, or to visit and ride the train can be an epic poem.

The Louisville Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes part of Southern Indiana has about 1.9 million people. The Lexington Metropolitan Statistical area has about 450,000 With a state population of just over 4 million people, about half of the state lives between the two areas.

Before the recession hit, Southern Kentucky (Bowling Green) was the fastest growing part of the state, and is on I-65.

KRM has tried in the past to offer boarding in Boston, but it's been hit or miss. Locating a more permanent facility on the Boston end, perhaps with a shop area and storage, and using New Haven, the museum, town, and displays as a destination may be a better long term solution.

Just because instituional memory can be short, the CF7 was purchased in the late 1980s (1987-1988?) from the Indiana Railroad (the shortline, not the interurban). It was surplus to their needs.

At the time KRM was running an excursion operation on the mainline, and L&N 152 needed diesel assist most of the time. The BL2 was becoming unreliable, culminating in a low scale electrical cabinet fire that year. It was fully rewired, but it took time, so the decision was made to find another roadworthy diesel.

According to annual reports and newsletters at the time, the CF-7 was in the best shape and the lowest price, and was chosen for those reasons.

I don't think it was that reliable in the beginning either. In 1988, the last year they ran excursions out of Lebanon on the soon-to-be-abandoned portion of the Lebanon Branch, both the BL2 and the CF7 broke down, leaving 152 to haul all 15 passenger cars, two hoppers, a crane, a flatcar and the aux tender back to Louisville on its own.

Soon after purchase, the focus of the museum changed to moving out of Louisville and running the current operation in New Haven. What made sense from a short-term need for expediency in the late 1980s became somewhat of an albatross. Don't get me wrong, it's a nice locomotive that provided reliable service, but it never really "fit" with the collection and probably was used to justify all other sorts of "mission creep" that built up over the years.