History on abandoned railroads?

I live in Central Kentucky too (Lexington). Some of the spur lines were bought up by R.J. Corman--an outfit that is headquartered in Nicholasville, Kentucky.

Corman owns spur lines that used to be owned by Southern (now Norfolk-Southern), CSX (once known as Louisville and Nashville), and C & O (Chesapeake and Ohio).

Norfolk-Southern runs mostly north and south

CSX runs from Lexington through Paris (and on up toward Maysville). That section of rail was bought from CSX by a rail line called TTX, I think.

C & O runs east and west. The rail line running from Lexington eastward toward Winchester and beyond was pulled up many years ago.

One last rail line that went out of business many, many years ago---The Frankfort and Cincinnati Railroad. No rail lines ever went toward Cincinnati, however, in spite of the name. It was a shortline railway that once had passenger service. It ran from Frankfort, on through Stamping Ground and Georgetown, to Paris. It stopped there. It once served to transport whiskey from distilleries in Frankfort and Stamping Ground. What is left of these tracks is mostly just a rail bed. There was a railway trestle in Frankfort that belonged to the railroad that I believe either collapsed or was torn down. You can Google the Frankfort and Cincinnati Railroad

Check with the railroad museums in Kentucky, as they often have maps of the old track setups available for the user to look at, which might be the solution for you. After that, I would recommend the National Railroad Historical Society, which also might have such details for you.

USGS maps some times show who the right of way belongs to. I think google maps might be a good place to check that out.

Another approach is to find out what railroads served the area and contact the historical society for those railroads.

Now if we knew the general area that you are talking about, some one might be able to hazard a guess.

Here is a link that might help you in your search:

http://railfan.net/cgi-bin/trainthumb.cgi?maps/195...

Now this is for NYS, there are other sites for other states.

An easy way is research! Go outside and find the manufacturer name, it can usually be found on fish plates or rails. Fish Plates are iron pieces that are on top of the ties, or wood. Once you find that manufacturer, look it up and you can find the year the railroad went abandoned. Or at least the railroad that owns it.

And if you are really desperate, you can go to City Hall or a transportation office and they might be able to supply information.

not something in any respect incorrect with that. by using the way, those first 2 %. are from the Paulinskill Valley path in northwest NJ, close to the intersection of Junction and Parsons street, a pair of mile from Camp Auxilium. I used to run those for circulate-united states in extreme college...completely flat, rapidly lengths of path in very hilly terrain, particularly useful atmosphere, and extremely cool interior the summertime. The rail line substitute into used a century in the past to deliver milk from the dairy farms into the super cities like Newark and long island, yet have been deserted whilst paved roads have been equipped. From what i've got study, lots of the rails have been pulled approximately 30 years in the past. Be warned, although...the single rail path is "secure" and an offical state park path, however the different deserted path remains private assets, and in many situations marked "no trespassing". There are additionally some very risky deserted street bridges interior the section which circulate the river, yet all thats left are the rusty metallic skeletons, plus a plank or 2 crossing 20 ft above the very quickly and chilly Paulinskill river. not secure.