EXPLORING - VINCENNES AND MAIN

New Albany, Indiana was a Big City when I was a kid on my bike. If you click on the pix you get big ones. Photos by Thomas Kepshire.

Top: the K&I Bridge to Louisville. Trains ran down the middle and cars and trucks in lanes at the side. It had a see-through metal grid roadway and made a funny noise under the tires when Dad drove over it. When I rode under it on my bike I could smell humid organic mud, vegetation, creosote and hot metal. I still can smell that today.

2: The tower at the New Albany end of the Bridge that controlled all the crossing gates. Two rail lines crossed thorugh the middle of a major intersection.

3. In the upper left where the silver metal signal box is, used to be a shack where a signalman sat all day and flagged down traffic on Main when the gates went down. It WAS a shack and I remember a skinny old man in greasy clothes sitting on dark greasy pillows.

4: A Monon diesel engine at the train station circa 1949. As a little kid I can remember hearing steam locomotives in the night at the station.

My dream for next spring is to save enough money to spend a week back there with no relatives, but exploring old haunts to see how they've changed.