Between Burdine and Elkhorn City KY beside Highway 197 stand these monuments to a rail line long gone. They look freakishly like a pop art version of Stonehenge. The one on the left is not leaning precariously, that’s lens distortion. These are located at approximately 37.229696, -82.524684. The reason they line up like this is that the railroad crossed this highway at a sharp angle, but the piers had to allow for the roadway. This bridge was intact in 1996, but gone in 2000. It appears to have originally connected a mine area (later a strip mine) some miles to the north with an interchange near Burdine. The earliest image Google Earth has of this area was taken in 1995 (enable “historical imagery”). You can clearly see where this line went.
Blogging the Railroad Tunnels 