Dinner train founder Rick Corman dies at his Nicholasville home after long illness
STAFF REPORT
Rick J. Corman, founder of the Old Kentucky Dinner Train, died earlier today at his Nicholasville home.
Friday, Aug. 23, 2013, 12:35 p.m. — The Lexington Herald-Leader is reporting that Rick Corman, founder of the Nicholasville-based R.J. Corman Railroad Group and owner of the Old Kentucky Dinner Train in Bardstown has died at the age of 58.
Corman’s death was announced just before noon by state Senate Majority Leader R.J. Palmer. A company spokesman told the Herald-Leader Corman died about 11 a.m. Friday at his Nicholasville home.
In 2001, Corman was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer that attacks plasma cells in bone marrow and destroys bones.
Corman was founder and sole owner of R.J. Corman Railroad Group, one of only two major companies that offered 24-hour emergency derailment cleanup. The company employs more than 1,100 people in 22 states. Fortune magazine estimated the company’s 2010 annual revenues at $300 million and after-tax profits at $50 million.
Corman’s first acquisition as a railroad owner was a 20-mile short line he bought in 1987 here in Bardstown from the old L&N Railroad. On that stretch, he started My Old Kentucky Dinner Train in 1988.
Using a rail car that was part of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 1969 funeral cortege, the dinner train has become a major tourist attraction, and continues to take excursions through the rolling countryside as diners feast on entrees such as prime rib or barbecued scallops.
Funeral arrangements are pending.
-30-
