Bluegrass Railroad Recognized in Kentucky’s 2025 Statewide Rail Plan
- Blue Grass Railroad
- Sep 30, 2025
- 2 min read
September 2025
The Bluegrass Scenic Railroad and Museum has received an important recognition from the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, with our railroad specifically included in the Commonwealth’s official 2025 Kentucky Statewide Rail Plan.
While it may not be a newspaper headline, inclusion in Kentucky’s statewide rail plan is significant. The document provides an official look at the railroads operating throughout the Commonwealth and the role they play in Kentucky’s transportation system.
And among those railroads, the Bluegrass stands apart.
A Unique Railroad in Kentucky
The state rail plan recognizes the Bluegrass Scenic Railroad and Museum in Versailles and describes our excursion operations along the historic railroad toward the Kentucky River.
Most notably, the plan identifies our line as Kentucky’s only railroad line that is not used to transport freight.
That distinction reflects what makes our railroad unusual.
Rather than moving commercial freight, our railroad exists to preserve history, educate the public, and give visitors the opportunity to experience railroading firsthand.
From our Versailles station, passengers travel through the Woodford County countryside along a railroad corridor with roots reaching back to Kentucky’s historic rail network.
Preserving a Railroad by Operating It
At the Bluegrass Railroad Museum, preservation means more than displaying locomotives and railroad cars.
Whenever possible, we believe railroad history should be experienced.
Our volunteers maintain historic equipment, care for the museum's collection, maintain the railroad itself, operate excursion trains, and share the stories of the people and railroads that helped shape Kentucky.
Every excursion allows passengers to hear the sounds of a working railroad, feel the movement of a train beneath them, and see the countryside from a perspective that highways simply cannot provide.
That makes our railroad both a museum and a living piece of Kentucky transportation history.
From Versailles Toward the Kentucky River
The route recognized by the state begins in Versailles and travels toward the Kentucky River, carrying passengers through some of Woodford County's characteristic Bluegrass landscape.
It is the same historic corridor that generations of railroaders once worked and that today's volunteers continue to preserve.
Keeping that railroad operational requires year-round work—from track and equipment maintenance to restoration projects, train operations, museum activities, and passenger service.
Much of that work happens quietly, long before passengers hear “All aboard.”
Recognition for Our Volunteers
Being included in an official statewide transportation document is also recognition of the volunteers who have kept the Bluegrass Railroad moving.
For decades, volunteers have donated their time and skills so that this piece of Kentucky railroad history would not disappear.
Today, visitors can still climb aboard a train in Versailles because generations of volunteers believed this railroad was worth saving.
We’re proud that the Commonwealth’s official rail plan recognizes the Bluegrass Scenic Railroad and Museum as a unique part of Kentucky’s railroad story.
Freight may no longer travel our rails—but history still does.
