The Louisville Southern Railroad (abbreviated: LS) was a 19th-century

railway company A railway company is a company within the rail industry. It can be a manufacturing firm or an rail transport operations, operator. Some railway companies operate both the trains and the track, while, particularly in the European Union, operation ...

in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

Kentucky Kentucky ( , ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States and one of the states of the Upper South. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north; West Virginia and Virginia ...

. It operated from until , when it was incorporated into the Southern Railway in Kentucky. Originally incorporated as the Louisville, Harrodsburg and Virginia Railroad in 1868, no track was laid until the early 1880s. When the Louisville, New Albany and Chicago Railway was chartered in 1882 and began an attempt to challenge the L&N's access to the

Eastern Kentucky Coalfield The Eastern Kentucky Coalfield is part of the Central Appalachian bituminous coalfield, including all or parts of 30 Kentucky counties and adjoining areas in Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee. It covers an area from the Allegheny M ...

s, the LH&V was reörganized as the Louisville Southern and hired the LNA&C's president, Louisvillian Bennett Young. Construction commenced in 1884 and ran from

Louisville Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border. ...

through Shelbyville and Lawrenceburg to

Harrodsburg Harrodsburg is a home rule-class city in Mercer County, Kentucky, United States. It is the seat of its county. The population was 9,064 at the 2020 census. Although Harrodsburg was formally established by the House of Burgesses after Boonesbo ...

, which was reached in 1888. A spur was constructed to Burgin, where the Louisville Southern joined the Cincinnati Southern's mainline.Castner, Charles. ''The Encyclopedia of Louisville
p. 573
"Louisville Southern Railroad". University Press of Kentucky (Lexington), 2001. Accessed 14 October 2013. In 1888, the Louisville Southern also began a spur from Lawrenceburg to

Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( ; french: Château de Versailles ) is a former royal residence built by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, about west of Paris, France. The palace is owned by the French Republic and since 1995 has been managed, ...

and Lexington. It then purchased the Versailles and Midway and initiated service to Georgetown. The line to Lexington crossed the

Kentucky River The Kentucky River is a tributary of the Ohio River, long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map , accessed June 13, 2011 in the U.S. Commonwealth of Kentucky. The river and its tri ...

at Tyrone by means of the Young's High Bridge and initiated service in October 1889. Within Louisville, the LS leased the track and facilities of the Kentucky and Indiana Bridge and Railroad Company: passengers boarded and disembarked at Central Station on Seventh Street and cargo was loaded and unloaded at the K&I's West End yard. The Louisville Southern in turn was leased by the LNA&C from 1889 to March 1890. The

East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railway The East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railroad (ETV&G) was a rail transport system that operated in the southeastern United States during the late 19th century. Created with the consolidation of the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad and th ...

later leased both the Cincinnati Southern and the Louisville Southern and all three were merged into the Southern system in 1894. The Louisville Southern's former rights-of-way currently form parts of the Class I

Norfolk Southern The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad in the United States formed in 1982 with the merger of Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. With headquarters in Atlanta, the company operates 19,420 route miles (31, ...

system.

References

{{reflist, 2 Defunct Kentucky railroads Defunct companies based in Louisville, Kentucky Transportation in Louisville, Kentucky Railway companies established in 1884 Railway companies disestablished in 1894 1894 mergers and acquisitions 1884 establishments in Kentucky 1894 disestablishments in Kentucky

See also

References