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, 19 miles were abandoned, and the 15-mile segment from Nashville to Murfreesboro ended up with the new Murfreesboro, Nashville, Southwestern Railway, which ran it until the that line too was abandoned in 1952.[1][4][5] That left 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.)[6][7]
By mid-century, 75% of the Graysonia’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]
In 1926, the line obtained a Baldwin2-6-0 “Mogul” steam freight engine, originally numbered as #203 but later renumbered as #26.[9] That engine, sold by the line in 1952, is now on static display at the Illinois Railway Museum as the Graysonia Nashville & Ashdown 26.[9]
Other locomotives used at one time or another include #55, an Alco S4 diesel;[10] #74R, also an S4;[11] and, #80, an EMD MP15DC diesel.[12]