Today's Train of Though- Enter Sandman, September 9th, 2013

Today's Train of Thought takes us to the Bluegrass state and provides us a glimpse of the late RJ Corman's impeccably-run Central Kentucky Lines.

Sand vacuumed up from the bed of the Ohio River is loaded into a fleet of RJ Corman's impeccably maintained fleet of red gondola cars by Louisville, KY based Nugent sand for the relatively short 80 mile trip to Nugent Sand's Lexington, KY facility.

The short trip, which was profiled in a 2011 Lexington Herald-Leader article about RJ Corman's railroad enterprises, takes an estimated 17,400 trucks of the road between Louisville and Lexington each year. Since 2005- just two years after RJ Corman's Central Kentucky Lines took over operations of the former Louisville & Nashville line between Lexington and Louisville- anywhere from 400,000 to 600,000 tons of sand have been moved over the line with each car carrying roughly 125 tons.

Here, railpictures.net contributor JL Scott caught RJ Corman Lines SD40T-2 #5409 and SD40-2 #3944 roaring eastbound through Shelbyville, KY with a Lexington-bound sand train on May 22nd, 2011. The #5409 started out life as Denver, Rio Grande & Western #5409 while the #3944 began as a Missouri Pacific unit.