The Big South Fork Scenic Railway is a heritage railroad in Stearns, Kentucky.
The route runs for 16 miles through lush countryside in the Appalachian Mountains. Live music usually precedes train departures. The terminus is the Big South Fork River and Recreation Area. This park contains a gift shop and snack bar with picnic shelter as well as hiking trails..
The railroad is presently restoring a large 1944-era steam locomotive and uses diesel locomotives for its excursion trains.
The adjacent McCreary County Museum (admission included in train ticket) demonstrates life in Kentucky's coal company towns.
Famous quotes containing the words big, south, fork, scenic and/or railway:
“Trying to be a perfect feminist ... is not really a big improvement on trying to be a perfect wife, mother, and lady.”
—Jane O’Reilly, U.S. feminist and humorist. The Girl I Left Behind, ch. 7 (1980)
“In the far South the sun of autumn is passing
Like Walt Whitman walking along a ruddy shore.
He is singing and chanting the things that are part of him,
The worlds that were and will be, death and day.
Nothing is final, he chants. No man shall see the end.
His beard is of fire and his staff is a leaping flame.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“Every country we conquer feeds us. And these are just a few of the good things we’ll have when this war is over.... Slaves working for us everywhere while we sit back with a fork in our hands and a whip on our knees.”
—Curtis Siodmak (1902–1988)
“Hence from scenic bacchanal,
Preshrunk and droll prodigal!
Smallness that you had to spend,
Spent. Wench, whiskey and tail-end
Of your overseas disease
Rot and rout you by degrees.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“Her personality had an architectonic quality; I think of her when I see some of the great London railway termini, especially St. Pancras, with its soot and turrets, and she overshadowed her own daughters, whom she did not understand—my mother, who liked things to be nice; my dotty aunt. But my mother had not the strength to put even some physical distance between them, let alone keep the old monster at emotional arm’s length.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)