Working rail roads and their tracks.

[ovrszd]

Here is a video. 90 car dedicated trains have been around for 20 years or so at the encouragement of the RRs. Cuts the freight cost per bushel in half from the old mill. The savings will pay for the $32M mill in 6-8 years. Steel ties are being used.

Crawfordville Full Site Update July 4th - YouTube

I should have read down. Excellent Drone video. A shot straight down from 2,000ft would have been the clencher. Thanks for posting this. That was a huge project. I was surprised by the size of the levy it sits on in some areas.

 

[MossRoad]

I ride a lot of rail trails and there is some hiking along an old canal near me (@Mossroad, check out River Preserve County Park). I'm continually amazed at the accomplishments of our ancestors using only hand tools, or crude machines no larger than modern compact tractors.

Will do, thanks! :thumbsup:

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Over the last few years, people in my town have argued on FB that there was a tunnel under our town. My dad who is 96 and still alive said it was a cut, with wood bridges over the rails. He remembers as a boy the train going under the bridges with the smoke coming up thru.
Eventually I found this pic of the cut thru town, taken sometime after the RR was closed, and before they filled in the cut.

Next pic is the train leaving the station heading up into the cut.

 

[ovrszd]

My son was up at the alpine tunnel. We vacationed a couple of years at a ranch near there outside gunnison. He took a jeep trip up while we were riding horses above the treeline.

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That's it!!! I've got pics of that little museum building inside and out but can't find them. Thanks for posting these. It's worth the trip and can be done in a 2wd vehicle. The people that maintain the museum also clear the trail each Spring. There's also a Gold or Silver mine near there that's right beside the trail. My kids have explored in it many, many times. It was always on the list of things they wanted to do. It's in the Valley between Tomichi Pass and Hancock Pass.

Gunnison is one of our favorite stops as well. We stayed overnight in the ABC Motel on Main Street several years in a row. The owners are European with heavy accents. We watched their kids grow up. Last time we were there I got to visit with their Son who had just Graduated from High School. I met him when he was 6 or 7.

 

[ovrszd]

Over the last few years, people in my town have argued on FB that there was a tunnel under our town. My dad who is 96 and still alive said it was a cut, with wood bridges over the rails. He remembers as a boy the train going under the bridges with the smoke coming up thru.
Eventually I found this pic of the cut thru town, taken sometime after the RR was closed, and before they filled in the cut.
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Next pic is the train leaving the station heading up into the cut.
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That's how it was done here too. Use the dirt from the cut to fill in the next low area.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Our friends ranch is waunita hot springs. Love that place. We examined many old mines in the mountains. My avitar is taken there.

 

[ovrszd]

Our friends ranch is waunita hot springs. Love that place. We examined many old mines in the mountains. My avitar is taken there.

My boys really enjoyed exploring the mines. I had several artifacts gathered from them like tools, pieces of clothing, etc. All burned in my shop fire ten years ago.

Some of the mine's entrances would be so caved in we'd have to dig rocks out of the way to crawl in. My rule was simple. Sit in the entrance hole for a minute silently. Feel the air. If there was no movement and felt stale we didn't go in. That would be a dead end mine. If the entrance caves in you could possibly die. Wanted a mine with ventilation shafts or other entrances/exits.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I posted this in my other thread, of my hometown RR.

June 21 1894

The fireman died 2 hrs later, crushed between engine and tender. Engineer died later that night.
Tressel gave way where some new timber’s were being put in.

 

[the old grind]

My brother has an heirloom panoramic picture of a 1914 wreck on the Wabash from a collapsed trestle. Its framed ~ 12" tall and 30" wide. The whole town turned out to be in the shot, and our Grandpa can be seen holding a briefcase. This page includes press photos but not the wide shot: Attica, IN Train Wreck, Apr 1914 | GenDisasters ... Genealogy in Tragedy, Disasters, Fires, Floods

Grandpa was 19, a printer by trade, and found the package in the wreckage, recognizing it to be Federal property. It contained printing plates destined for one of the banks or mints out West, Denver or Sacramento. The authorities were pleased to have the plates returned intact.

btw, Gramp worked till he was 80 years old, had watched at lunch time Detroit's Cobo Hall being built from the window of the Arnold-Powers print shop he worked in. He might have been the last hand typesetter working in the Metro Detroit area until he retired in '75. He passed in '93 at 98 and is still my hero. In the '60s he'd show us previews of FoMoCo brochures, etc months before they were sent to dealers for a new model year.

 

[ovrszd]

Great story Old Grind.

I've been to Attica several times.