Cordova Branch Greenway at milepost 0.0 - Rails to Trails on Waymarking.com

The Cordova Branch Greenway also known as Shelby Farms Greenline is a seven-mile urban trail connecting Midtown Memphis to Shelby Farms Park–the largest park of its kind in the country. Managed and operated by the nonprofit Shelby Farms Park Conservancy, the trail is an incredible community asset that provides new opportunities for recreation, exercise, togetherness, healthy activity, commuting and more.

The Paducah & Memphis was built by two relatively late companies - the Paducah, Tennessee & Alabama Railway, and the Tennessee Midland Railroad. Around 1890, the PT&A began building southward from Paducah, Kentucky toward the Tennessee state line, with the eventual goal of reaching Florence, Alabama. The line reached Lexington (Midland City), TN, 119 miles from Paducah, in 1892 for a connection with its subsidiary, the TMR, which had been in operation westward of Memphis since 1889. TMR was called this the Memphis Branch. The TMR had earlier built from Memphis in the direction of Nashville, reaching Perryville, TN, on the west bank of the Tennessee River. The duo went bankrupt in 1893, and was sold at auction to the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. In 1896 the L&N in turn leased the entire line from Paducah to Memphis to its subsidiary, the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway. Thus the lines became the 254-mile P&M Division of the NC&STL, crossing the NC's Nashville Division at Hollow Rock Junction (Bruceton), TN. The track below Bruceton became part of the NC&STL Railway between Nashville and Memphis via Jackson (the largest town between Nashville and Memphis) and Dexter (later Cordova), while the northern line to Paducah, a branch of the NC&STL Railway.

After the track was removed from northeast of Cordova going east happened in 1968, the 13.34-mile track between Aulon and Cordova remained undisturbed to become a spur line called Cordova Branch. It was served until March 2001. On August 24, 2001, CSX filed with the Surface Transportation Board a petition for exemption to abandon a line of railroad known as the mid-town Memphis to Cordova Branch. The condition of the first two bridges (one of them crosses the 120 linear feet Cypress Creek creosote pine timber trestle bridge was built in 1921 has sustained major fire damage as a result of arson) causing CSX to impose an embargo of the line to avoid unsafe operations. The line remains embargoed.

The Cordova Branch line removed the spur track from June 2008 until December 2008. A new rail-to-trail project (first phase) completed circa October 2010. The second phase between Mullins Station and Cordova Depot expected to complete in 2016.

Country: United States State/Province/etc.: Tennessee Trail Start (town): Midtown Memphis Trail Finish (town): Mullins Station (Shelby Farms Park) Trail Length: 7 Trail Surface: Paved Pack Animals Allowed: yes Fees: no Rail-to-Trail Sign: Milepost 0.0 (former NC&STL milepost 216.90) Internet Link(s): http://www.shelbyfarmspark.org/shelbyfarmsgreenline http://ncstl.com/ericfleet/index.html

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