The City of Madison Port Authority Railroad (or just simply, the Madison Railroad) is located in southeastern Indiana, having been originally built in the 1850s to connect the Ohio River with mainline railroads making their way across southern Indiana. Its southern end is home to the steepest grade on any railroad in the country, 6%. Its northern end is at North Vernon, Indiana, where it connects with CSX's former B&O line from Cincinnati to St Louis. The connection is at-grade, and a set of diamonds there are of unusual construction, with the CMPA's rails laid on top of longitudinal ties (not perpendicular, as is normal). A station in the southeast quadrant of the diamonds serves as a CSX field office, and a very old train-order semaphore still stands at the junction. South of the junction, CMPA has a couple blocks of street running in the town, and the connector in the northeast quadrant is laid in a brick town street! The line was operated by the Pennsylvania Railroad almost since its inception, and ownership transferred to the City of Madison (the line's southern terminus) sometime later. All in all, it is a very unique little shortline railroad.
So here is a walkaround view of the junction, semaphore, and station, but first a look at the railroad's two locomotives. Their SW8 #2013 is a former US Army unit, and their GP11 #3634 was formerly with the Illinois Central Gulf, rebuilt from an older Geep in the Paducah rebuild program. The Geep waits by a plastic recycling plant while employees load covered hoppers there with plastic pellets. The SW8 sits in what one might call a very tiny 'yard', with a spur for unloading grain.
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