WINFREY ADKINS says his interest in the former Louisville & Nashville Railroad depot goes back to the 1960s when he was a student at Transylvania University and took photos of the building. The former freight depot, across Depot Street, and Adkins’ 1955 Chevy Bel Air, at far left, are also pictured, he said. (Photo submitted)
DEPOT STREET is located in front of the former Louisville & Nashville Railroad depot, now operated as Nostalgia Station Toy and Train Museum. (Photo by Bob Vlach)
Built in 1910, the former Louisville & Nashville (L&N) Railroad depot in Versailles – now operated as Nostalgia Station Toy and Train Museum on Depot Street – closed in 1932, railroad enthusiast and historian Winfrey Adkins told the Sun.
Adkins and his wife Wanda purchased the former L&N passenger depot in the mid-1980s from Jimmy McDaniel, “a good friend of mine,” he said. Four apartments occupied the former depot, so “we restored it” and reopened the depot as Nostalgia Station in 1987, he said.
An L&N freight service depot was located across Depot Street, where CrossPointe Church is now located, Adkins said. He also pointed out Ricardo’s Grill & Pub (previously known as Railheads) on Frankfort Street in Versailles is a former Louisville Southern depot, but it was relocated across the tracks, which he described as “a stone’s throw” away.
“They were competing railroads just like Ford and Chevrolet” are competing motor vehicle manufacturers, Adkins said.
The L&N line, which was extended to Millville around 1910 and provided rail service to local distilleries, went all the way to the mountains of Eastern Kentucky before closing in ’32, he said.
Adkins, who recently celebrated his 82nd birthday, says his interest in the former Versailles depot goes back to the 1960s when he was a student at Transylvania University and took photographs of the building. But his interest in trains began in childhood when his dad (Dr. Jerry M. Adkins, a Versailles dentist from 1932 to 1979) drove him to the Netherland C&O rail yard in Lexington after getting off work.
They’d get hamburgers and watch the trains when it was dark, remembers Adkins, “and there were all these red and green switch lanterns that were lit by kerosene; and it was just like Christmas looking down through there. There were dozens of them.”
Born and raised in Versailles, Adkins also remembers going to the Louisville Southern rail yard in Versailles with his dad, who he affectionately says was, like himself, “a railroad nut.” Steam engines were still running, so Adkins says he got to watch a railroad fireman put coal into the boiler, and also got to blow the whistle.