Graysonia, Nashville & Ashdown Railroad

The trackage can be traced to the Memphis, Paris and Gulf Railroad, incorporated in 1906.[3] That line's original vision was to link Nashville, Arkansas to Memphis, Tennessee and Paris, Texas.[3] The name changed in 1910 to the Memphis, Dallas and Gulf Railway.[3] The railroad constructed a line from Ashland, Arkansas to Shawmut, Arkansas, about 61 miles.[1] When the railroad went into foreclosure in 1922, the Graysonia, Nashville & Ashdown was incorporated to purchase the entire Ashland-to-Shawmut route.[1] However, the Nashville to Murfreesboro segment was purchased by another line, and 19 miles were abandoned, leaving the Graysonia with about 27 miles from Nashville to Ashdown.[1] (Graysonia, Arkansas, then a lumber mill town and now a ghost town, did not end up on the final route, being northeast of and not between Nashville and Ashdown.)[4][5]

By mid-century, 75% of the line's business came from hauling cement and quarry rock.[2] The trackage was relocated in the 1960s to make room for a dam project.[2] In 1998, the line was purchased by the Kansas City Southern.[2]

The trackage was subsequently leased to Watco in 2005, and is currently operated by the Arkansas Southern Railroad.[2][6]

In 1926, the line obtained a Baldwin 2-6-0 “Mogul” steam freight engine, originally numbered as #203 but later renumbered as #26.[7] That engine, sold by the line in 1952, is now on static display at the Illinois Railway Museum as the Graysonia Nashville & Ashdown 26.[7]

Other locomotives used at one time or another include #55, an Alco S4 diesel;[8] #74R, also an S4;[9] and, #80, an EMD MP15DC diesel.[10]

The Graysonia train depot in Ashdown, Arkansas appears on the National Register of Historic Places listings in Little River County, Arkansas as the Memphis, Paris and Gulf Railroad Depot.[11]