from the research of Jerry McDaniel
The Jackson Sun, November 4, 1936
The short line of railroad track, running from Lexington to Perryville on the Tennessee river, which has been abandoned by the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railroad, will be torn up between this time and the first of the year, and the little dinky line will then be only a memory.
For years this line did a good business and served the patrons along its 26 miles well. But the railroads themselves began having hard sledding, and only the through lines were able to show anything approaching a profit.
The depression had struck the railroads with full force, business of all kinds was dropping off, including freight traffic.
Permanent highways running alongside the railroads were being built, the railroads feeling the competition of buses and passenger traffic slipping away, but part of the short haul freight business was going via trucks.
Under these circumstances, the death struggle of the short line railroad began, and during the past few years a number of them have given up the ghost.
There will may of the old-timers on the Lexington-Perryville branch to sign with regret over the passing of the little railroad, for it was for many years the link that connected the populace with the outside world. It was the vein through which commerce flowed. It served in bad weather as well as good weather. The dinky engine puffing through the haze of a murky day brought tidings of joy to the people along the countryside.
It missed the county seat of Decatur county by four miles, but it ran through Parsons and that little town experienced much of its growth because of the railroad.
It ran right slap dab up to the Tennessee river, because it went into Perryville, for many years the county seat of Perry county located on the west bank of the river. The county seat was moved some time ago to Linden, which is across the river in Middle Tennessee.
There are now improved highways, passable the year round, in much of the section traversed by the little railroad, the present company found it unprofitable to operate it has has, therefore, been given permission by the Interstate Commerce Commission to abandon it, but this was not achieved without a contest of the people living along the two ribbons of steel.
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