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Big Emma 1977 hauls empty coal cars from Winchester to Ravenna, Kentucky, in June 1956. The big locomotive was retired that year and scrapped in 1959.
Robert F. Collins
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L&N Historical Society Collection
Longtime Louisville & Nashville Railroad employee Charles Castner died last month at the age of 97. He co-wrote a book in 2024 on one of L&N’s most powerful steam locomotives, the Big Emma.
Eastern Standard
  • Can required civic education help heal a divided nation?
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    Episode 27 of our series, “Democracy Optimist,” hosted by University of Kentucky election law and voting rights research professor Joshua Douglas.
  • Accounts of March 9 and March 11, 1976, when the Scotia coal mine in Letcher County exploded, killing 26 miners. On the 50th anniversaries of the explosions, our guests, Bill Bishop and Brian McKnight, recall these back-to-back disasters.
Today's Interview
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