Rail roads and their tracks.

[RobS]

My father-in-law and I used to walk down an abandoned right of way owned by the NJI&I (Singer Sewing Machines) to go ice fishing, then take a spur off about a half a mile that ended in a lake. The lake was a peat quarry. The ties were still there as was a trestle out into the lake. However, all of it was about 6" underwater. Kinda neat.

Around here, most abandoned lines had their tracks taken up fairly quickly. The only one that didn't was a line running out of South Bend, IN to the University of Notre Dame. They used it to haul coal in originally. Then they started trucking it in when a bridge over the river became unstable. The rails sat there for well over 20 years, until about 5-7 years ago a company came in and removed all of the rails, ties, and ballast. Interestingly, after the line was abandoned, the coal would be hauled into South Bend, and dumped at the NJI&I roundhouse. They'd load it onto trucks and drive it up to the university and dump it. ND kept a rail line from their power plant to the coal pile, about 1/4 mile long. They had several hopper cars and a little engine. They'd drive the hoppers out to the pile. A front end loader would load a conveyor to fill the cars, then they'd drive the cars back to the power plant and dump them. They finally ditched the train for dump trucks. And just this year they stopped using coal altogether. They had a caboose and a large crane there as well. I believe they scrapped everything, except sent the caboose to a local rail museum in North Judson.

There is progress towards this becoming the "coal line" trail including the bridge over the river at Angela. It will be a nice connection between the river trail and the Lasalle trail.

 

[ArlyA]

I spent as few years as a carmen. These are the people who do repairs to cars, some do this for the RR or like me, worked for a repair contractor. Are there any another other people here who have done that work?

 

[MossRoad]

There is progress towards this becoming the "coal line" trail including the bridge over the river at Angela. It will be a nice connection between the river trail and the Lasalle trail.

I see tree company tearing out the path from the old St. Joe High parking lot west behind the houses on Angela, so yes and no. It appears they ARE NOT using the old RR grade east of North Shore that runs up through Holy Cross, St. Mary's to 933. They are cutting a new trail straight east from the point east of the RR bridge where it starts to curve north, going straight up the side of Angela Hill. God forbid city folks having a direct path through the colleges/retirement village. What a waste of a RR grade that's already in place.

 

[RobS]

I see tree company tearing out the path from the old St. Joe High parking lot west behind the houses on Angela, so yes and no. It appears they ARE NOT using the old RR grade east of North Shore that runs up through Holy Cross, St. Mary's to 933. They are cutting a new trail straight east from the point east of the RR bridge where it starts to curve north, going straight up the side of Angela Hill. God forbid city folks having a direct path through the colleges/retirement village. What a waste of a RR grade that's already in place.

Just checked Google satelite, I see what you are saying. That's going to be a steep trail! Also, what I called the Lasalle trail is actually the East Bank trail.

 

[Hay Dude]

I see tree company tearing out the path from the old St. Joe High parking lot west behind the houses on Angela, so yes and no. It appears they ARE NOT using the old RR grade east of North Shore that runs up through Holy Cross, St. Mary's to 933. They are cutting a new trail straight east from the point east of the RR bridge where it starts to curve north, going straight up the side of Angela Hill. God forbid city folks having a direct path through the colleges/retirement village. What a waste of a RR grade that's already in place.

Why do you say god forbid city folks having a direct path through the colleges/retirement village?

 

[MossRoad]

The only time I touched rail cars was back in the 80's when I worked for a company driving military and postal vehicles out of AM General's plant in South Bend. We'd drive them to rail spurs around NW Indiana and load them onto flatbeds and double deckers depending on the vehicles. It went like this:

- Our boss would order cars to a siding. Usually 10-20 would show up.
- 6 of us would go to the siding when they were delivered and set the brakes on the car nearest the ramp. Then we'd move the ramp into position.
- Then we'd take steel diamond tread plates, usually 18" X 48" and set them between the first two cars, and lock one side down with rebar. The plates had tubes and the cars had tubes to match, and the rebar locked it in place, as I recall.
- If the plates didn't overhang the next car by 6", we had to take a j-bar and move the car towards the previous car, then set the brake on that car. If it did overlap by at least 6", we'd just set the brake and move along. The plates were never of the same length, so many times we had to mix and match to get similar lengths between the cars.
- Once all cars were plated and brakes set and ramp in position, 6 of us would hop into one of our cars and drive to the AM General plant in South Bend.
- We'd pick 6 vehicles from our roster, prep them, and drive them back to the siding, up the ramp, and onto the cars all the way to the end. Then we'd chain down the front end, slam the vehicle in reverse and gun the engine to tension the chains.
- Then we'd chain down the rear and tighten with load binders. Then safety wire the load binder handles in place. Depending on the size of the vehicle, we'd have either 4 or 8 chains.
- Then we'd all hop in the next guy's car, and repeat until we got 5 loads of vehicles. The last guy would take us back to get our cars at the AM General plant.
- Once we had all the rail cars filled, we'd remove the plates and release the brakes on all the cars except the first.
- Our boss would contact the RR and they'd come out, take the loaded cars, and replace with empty cars. Sometimes that would take days! So no work until then. That's when I learned RR was painfully slow method of shipping.

 

[MossRoad]

Why do you say god forbid city folks having a direct path through the colleges/retirement village?

Because this is South Bend, IN. The rail line that we're talking about leads directly from the three colleges/universities to the worst part of town. The colleges are the ones that wanted the rail line abandoned and converted to trail, yet when it came time to do it, they said "not in my backyard". The part of the RR grade that leads through the campuses down to the river has been heavily used by foot traffic since the 70's. Someone clears the brush and removes trash on a regular basis. But at the river, there's a RR bridge. That served as a barrier. Across the bridge, the RR grade was left to overgrow and be a dumping ground, to the point that no foot traffic has gone on it for 30 years. Now that they are opening up the other side of the bridge in the bad part of town, the universities are making a new trail to route foot traffic around their campuses, rather than using the existing RR grade.

While I'm all for rails-to-trails, walking and biking paths, etc.... I find it hypocritical that they promote community so heavily, then move to keep that same community from traversing the trail that they themselves have used for 30 years.

 

[MossRoad]

Just checked Google satelite, I see what you are saying. That's going to be a steep trail! Also, what I called the Lasalle trail is actually the East Bank trail.

I wish they'd have just continued the trail north through Holy Cross and tied in to the river trail at the existing RR grade junction on St. Mary's campus. I also wish they'd put a pedestrian bridge over the toll road entrance to tie in directly to the existing trail on the old RR grade that runs up to Niles. Then you'd have a very nice loop from St. Mary's north to Darden, west to the river, south to Angela, east/northeast back to St. Mary's. As it is, there will be no way to make a loop. You'll have to go north out of South Bend, west across Angela, north along the river, east across darden, then north to Niles. It gets boring running up a trail and having to turn around and run the same trail back.

 

[Hay Dude]

Because this is South Bend, IN. The rail line that we're talking about leads directly from the three colleges/universities to the worst part of town. The colleges are the ones that wanted the rail line abandoned and converted to trail, yet when it came time to do it, they said "not in my backyard". The part of the RR grade that leads through the campuses down to the river has been heavily used by foot traffic since the 70's. Someone clears the brush and removes trash on a regular basis. But at the river, there's a RR bridge. That served as a barrier. Across the bridge, the RR grade was left to overgrow and be a dumping ground, to the point that no foot traffic has gone on it for 30 years. Now that they are opening up the other side of the bridge in the bad part of town, the universities are making a new trail to route foot traffic around their campuses, rather than using the existing RR grade.

While I'm all for rails-to-trails, walking and biking paths, etc.... I find it hypocritical that they promote community so heavily, then move to keep that same community from traversing the trail that they themselves have used for 30 years.

That’s what my neighbors that rejected rails to trails feared. One of my town elders explained it sort of like this: “rails to trails sounds great, but what you have to realize, is rails to trails becomes open to the entire world, not just your neighbors along the tracks. Those trails are opened up to all sorts of activities, good and BAD” (like the “bad part of town” you mentioned)
Our community has literally ZERO crime. I believe that he had a point deserving of consideration. The “trail” is a trail open to anyone who wants to use it at any time, day night, Sunday, or when you’re having a birthday or graduation in your back yard. Not sure I want noisy, inconsiderate outsiders vaping (or worse) and throwing their Mcdonalds trash around.
I kind of sympathize with him in that I don’t need perverts and litterbugs walking behind my house 24/7, even if it does supposedly “increase real estate values”. I do realize many nice people will be walking there, too.
I can’t imagine anyone wanting to give up the privacy of their property to strangers passing through their property any time they feel like it versus a railroad, posted with private property signs and enforcement to go with it.

 

[RobS]

I wish they'd have just continued the trail north through Holy Cross and tied in to the river trail at the existing RR grade junction on St. Mary's campus. I also wish they'd put a pedestrian bridge over the toll road entrance to tie in directly to the existing trail on the old RR grade that runs up to Niles. Then you'd have a very nice loop from St. Mary's north to Darden, west to the river, south to Angela, east/northeast back to St. Mary's. As it is, there will be no way to make a loop. You'll have to go north out of South Bend, west across Angela, north along the river, east across darden, then north to Niles. It gets boring running up a trail and having to turn around and run the same trail back.

Agree! Hey, there are some nice trails in Goshen if you get bored...