Rail roads and their tracks.

[caver]

I took these last September on the old Denver Rio Grande Western that has been dead for awhile. From what I heard is if they abandoned it completely another RR can come and and claim it. I saw numerous boxes open with the wiring stripped. This is near Leadville CO at the Tennessee Pass tunnel. There is a tourist train that runs out of Leadville on a spur of this old line. I was also told it is an alternate route through the Rockies but has a steeper grade requiring more locomotives. Heading north it reconnects with I70 between Vail and Avon CO.

 

[MossRoad]

I don稚 really have strong feelings about rails to trails except I壇 rather them just be active railroads again, shipping bulk materials or passengers. Abandoned rails are sad places to me. Let痴 give incentives to reviving them and take some heavy trucks off the road to save our highways.

Businesses in many places are charged inventory tax. So, they don't keep inventory. They only ship in what they can sell rapidly to avoid that tax. The only way to do that is by truck. Until inventory taxes are addressed, that will always be an issue, and rail will only be used for bulk shipments.

The other thing that could change it, is if environmental rules force less long-distance trucking ( battery operated trucks ) which will force more bulk shipments by rail. We can all guess how most people on this forum will respond to more government regulations.

And the trucking industry hates the rail industry and the rail industry hates the trucking industry..... and they both lobby, etc....

I think maybe we shouldn't go down that rat hole in this thread.

 

[5030]

Speaking of abandoned rail right of ways, I have an Interurban right of way across one of my fields and to this day, I'm collecting abandoned and discarded OTM every time I fit and harvest that field. Being a retired trucker I still feel the demise of the American Railroad system was probably the worst thing to ever happen.

Railroads are vital to Interstate and Intrastate commerce.

 

[MossRoad]

I've always been fascinated with the electric South Shore line that runs between Chicago and South Bend, IN. It's still run as an interurban commuter line (one of the last in the country) and it still has a freight operation.

Back in the 60's and 70's they had three "Little Joe's". They were hardly little, as they were comparable in power to the Big Boy.

Originally, GE was contracted by the Soviet Union to build 20 of them. But, due to straining relations between them and the U.S., they never got delivered. The Milwaukee Road ended up with 8 of them. The South Shore got 3. And Brazil got 5.

Quite a fascinating story. Read about it here:

Little Joe (electric locomotive) - Wikipedia

Pictures and more links here:

Error 4 (Bad Request)!!1

Beautiful machines that not too many people know about.

There's still one running at the Illinois Railway Museum

 

[MossRoad]

Oh, they were called Little Joe Stalin's locomotives, so that got shortened to Little Joe's. :laughing:

 

[Hay Dude]

Speaking of abandoned rail right of ways, I have an Interurban right of way across one of my fields and to this day, I'm collecting abandoned and discarded OTM every time I fit and harvest that field. Being a retired trucker I still feel the demise of the American Railroad system was probably the worst thing to ever happen.

Railroads are vital to Interstate and Intrastate commerce.

Agree. I logged millions of CDL trucking miles, too. Mostly a tri axle Pete hauling stone. While I as driving, I would look at trucks hauling millions of tons of stone along the same route, all the while railroad tracks parallel the same road with trees growing up through the abandoned tracks RR ties. So much stone could have been hauled on steel rails.
And on top of that, the roads are chock full of destruction from same trucks.

 

[the old grind]

Our local railfan and modeling shop, Junction Valley Railroad has lost it's founder in 2016 and may be closed for good, hopefully just for a while. It's a~1/4 scale, 1 foot gauge railroad with many routes, turnouts, trestles, and overpasses. You could hop off in the park and ride pedal card or swings and slide with pop & snacks when the concessions were open. junction valley railroad - Google Search

The last ride I took was behind the one in this video from 2010. Junction Valley Railroad, 1 of 2 - YouTube The operating "Engineer" is shoehorned into the cabs of these with his feet in the noses. Power is Ford 351W (original 'Windsor block'). We didn't cover all tracks on that ride but did go around the perimeter and both directions across the trestled 90^ crossing.

"Real men love trains." This is/was one loco at Junction Valley. I'm pretty sure the hobby shop was open for at least a year after the rides shut down. I know of a backyard 1/4 scale track over in Haslett that one can see takes very little to decorate for Halloween. There's a good half mile of track visible as you drive by. This is a beauty I snapped on a ride.



Here on the LDLH&D I'm curreently running two short-lines non-connected. The outer one (Lionel O-31) has two sidings and the inner line (Lionel O-27) has three plus a small yard. I wish the FM was in Penn livery, and the SD40 was in UP, but they were ~$100 less being 'reversed'. Third UP Alco A unit, GP7 in Penn's green livery, and GG-1 (Tuscan Red, w/5-stripe) not shown. ATSF switcher in yard and small red early electric near it don't stand out much. Trackage and most of my rolling stock looks like this.


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Thanks, Moss! :thumbsup: Next time you visit Frankenmuth we could drive by and see what's left of JVRR. A year ago it looked like nothing had changed.

 

[MossRoad]

Bad links.

 

[dragoneggs]

I don稚 really have strong feelings about rails to trails except I壇 rather them just be active railroads again, shipping bulk materials or passengers. Abandoned rails are sad places to me. Let痴 give incentives to reviving them and take some heavy trucks off the road to save our highways.

Kinda with you... seems abandoning them weakens our infrastructure and limits our options for transit.

 

[MossRoad]

I think I'd like to visit the Illinois Railway Museum. It looks huge!