RAILROADS
As the railroads abandoned their depots, they usually demolished the structures, since state and local governments carried them as real property on the tax rolls. It made no sense for a railroad to pay property tax on buildings no longer in use. Only four Northern Kentucky depots still survive: The Chesapeake and Ohio (C&O) depot and the Louisville and Nashville (L&N) depot in Maysville are both owned by the City of Maysville, the C&O depot serving as a public transportation center and the L&N depot housing the police station. The SR depot at Erlanger is owned by the City of Erlanger and now is a museum. The Covington depot, formerly a C&O depot but also shared by the L&N, was sold to a private individual and turned into an office building. The Sparta depot (L&N) stood until 2003, when CSX tore it down after the City of Sparta failed to exercise its option to purchase the building. Railroad Depots in Northern Kentucky Boone Co. Devon (SR) Kensington (SR) Richwood (SR) Walton (L&N and SR) Bracken Co. Augusta (C&O) Brooksville (Brooksville and Ohio Railroad) Foster (C&O) Wellsburg (Brooksville Railroad and C&O) Campbell Co. Bellevue (C&O) Brent (C&O) California (C&O) Dayton (C&O) Mentor (C&O) Newport (near 11th and Saratoga) (C&O and L&N combined passenger station; C&O freight station) Newport (Jefferson [Sixth St.] and Saratoga Sts.) (L&N, originally Louisville, Cincinnati, and Lexington Railroad, passenger station until 1888; L&N freight station thereafter) New Richmond (C&O) Ross (C&O) Carroll Co. Carrollton (Carrollton Railroad) Eagle Station (L&N) Sanders (L&N) Worthville (Carrollton Railroad and L&N) Gallatin Co. Glenco (L&N) Sparta (L&N) Grant Co. Blanchett (SR) Corinth (SR)
Crittenden (SR) Dry Ridge (SR) Elliston (L&N) Mason (SR) Sherman (SR) Williamstown (SR) Zion (L&N) Kenton Co. Bank Lick (L&N) Bracht (SR) Buffi ngton (SR) Covington (C&O and L&N) Erlanger (SR) Highland (SR) Independence (L&N) Kenton (L&N) Latonia (L&N) Ludlow (SR) Morning View (L&N) Spring Lake (L&N) Visalia (L&N) Woodside (SR) Mason Co. Dover (C&O) Helena (L&N) Marshall (Lewisburg) (L&N) Maysville (C&O and L&N) Somo (L&N) South Ripley (C&O) Owen Co.: no rail ser vice Pendleton Co. Butler (L&N) Falmouth (L&N) Robertson Co.: no rail ser vice Charles H. Bogart
RAILROADS. The history of railroads in the Northern Kentucky region is intimately tied to railroad developments in Cincinnati. Railroads, when they came to the region in the 19th century, brought a new mode of transporting goods. Large, heavy loads could be moved at considerable speed overland in a more-or-less straight path. Railroads did not need to worry about the depth of the water in a river channel. Trains began serving Cincinnati in the mid-1840s, and by the 1850s they also served Northern Kentucky. In terms of the development of railroads, Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky initially found themselves at a disadvantage because of their topography. To the east and the south, the Allegheny and Appalachian mountains formed a barrier that was expensive to penetrate and demanded new engineering techniques. To the north and the west, major cities had already carved out their own mar-
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kets for goods, supplanting Cincinnati’s canals in those directions. The principal areas remaining for economic opportunities were those traditionally linked to the region—the east and the south—and it was in those directions that Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky concentrated their railroad building. Yet, railroads to the east and the south were not an end in themselves, because these same roads became mutually dependent upon rails reaching to the west and the north. During most of the 19th century, there was no agreement as to the gauge of railroad tracks. Rail gauge refers to the space between a track’s two iron rails. Most railroads in the United States today operate on standard gauge, which is 4 feet 8.5 inches—the same gauge as the wheels of a Roman chariot. Railroad tracks wider than this were referred to as “broad gauge,” and tracks narrower than this were called “narrow gauge.” Railroads of one gauge could not interchange their equipment with railroads of another gauge without special arrangements such as a third rail. Thus, at places where railroads of different gauges met (called a connection), goods had to be off-loaded tediously and expensively and reloaded onto other lines. Moreover, tracks within a central city did not always mesh with rail lines at the city’s outskirts. Further complicating matters, early railroads often had to stop at major geographic barriers such as the Ohio River. Locally, that problem was resolved with the opening in 1872 of the first railroad bridge across the river in Northern Kentucky, at Newport, called the L&N Bridge. Gauge mismatches were fi xed on May 30, 1886, when the Cincinnati Southern and Kentucky Central (KC) tracks were converted to standard. Thereafter, all major railroads serving Cincinnati were standard gauge, connecting with one another and having access into the Northern Kentucky region via bridges across the Ohio River by ownership, track rights, or interchange agreement. By 1890 Cincinnati was the third-busiest rail center in the United States. In the 19th century, at least 14 major railroads operated within the city of Cincinnati, and 4 of them served Northern Kentucky. But before the region had railroad connections to the north, the Covington and Lexington Railroad (C&L), the first to begin business within Northern Kentucky, was completed to Covington in December 1854; via Ohio River ferries, its cargoes supplied Cincinnati with hogs, grain, and other agricultural products. Its direct connection to Cincinnati, under the name of a successor, the Louisville and Nashville Railroad (L&N), was made possible by the opening of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Bridge in 1888. The second line to arrive in Northern Kentucky, and the first with tracks into Cincinnati, was the Louisville, Cincinnati, and Lexington (LC&L), the “short line” between Newport and Louisville, which a few years later extended into Cincinnati via the L&N Bridge. The third railroad to enter the region was the Cincinnati Southern, with the opening of its bridge at Ludlow in 1877. The fourth railroad, the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad (C&O), arrived from