Working rail roads and their tracks.

buckeyefarmer · Jun 8, 2021

jjeff said:
Speaking of railroads anyone ever hear of the railroad that never ran in the UP of MI? I found the 130 yr old 30 mile grade awhile back, when ATVing it is in the middle of nowhere and pretty amazing especially the "cut" with 50+ ft high canyon walls, and the huge trestle they made from the blasted rock from the cut. Cost over a million in those times. Supposedly lots of lives were lost due to unsanitary camp conditions. The grade ended up being to steep, first and only train to run it ended off the rails. Even put in a large ore dock that was never used. I'll post pictures if I can find them.

That will be cool to see

from Wikipedia.

Iron Range and Huron Bay Railroad
View attachment 701741

buckeyefarmer · Jun 8, 2021

Image from last post

buckeyefarmer · Jun 8, 2021

150th anniversary of bellaire Ohio stone viaduct coming up.

Number15 · Jun 10, 2021

I kinda of like RR stuff and occasionally search and look for old tracks and such. They are digging up an old line in the town I am moving to in TN. So I decided to search and see where it went. Well in my search I learned that the town I moved to is kinda responsible for the laws that require school busses to stop at all RR crossings. Horrible story but RR related and somewhat interesting.

Spring City Tenn Bus/Train crash

Spring City, Tennessee Bus/Train Crash August 1955 You'd think the concept of stopping at a railroad crossing and making absolute...

disasteroushistory.blogspot.com

buckeyefarmer · Jun 10, 2021

Number15 said:
I kinda of like RR stuff and occasionally search and look for old tracks and such. They are digging up an old line in the town I am moving to in TN. So I decided to search and see where it went. Well in my search I learned that the town I moved to is kinda responsible for the laws that require school busses to stop at all RR crossings. Horrible story but RR related and somewhat interesting.

Spring City Tenn Bus/Train crash

Spring City, Tennessee Bus/Train Crash August 1955 You'd think the concept of stopping at a railroad crossing and making absolute...

disasteroushistory.blogspot.com

Wow, how horrible, feel so sorry for the parents.

deezler · Jun 10, 2021

Learning about the Iron Range/Huron bay railroad yesterday was super fun, thanks guys.

I love the history of Michigan's upper peninsula. Such a rugged, harsh land full of long abandoned industrial endeavors. Fun place to visit and explore.

ArlyA · Jun 10, 2021

deezler said:
Learning about the Iron Range/Huron bay railroad yesterday was super fun, thanks guys.

I love the history of Michigan's upper peninsula. Such a rugged, harsh land full of long abandoned industrial endeavors. Fun place to visit and explore.

And gee, we moved here for the snowy winters and mild summers..

ArlyA · Jun 10, 2021

Seems the whole Iron Range/Huron bay railroad was an investment scheme of some kind. Somebody got rich while investors lost. Oh well.

jjeff · Jun 10, 2021

ArlyA said:
Seems the whole Iron Range/Huron bay railroad was an investment scheme of some kind. Somebody got rich while investors lost. Oh well.

Ever here the saying cart before the horse? that and some terrible planning. lol on several occasions a small idea of mine turns into this grand plan which in turn ends up being fubar. Looks like they never had a plan to connect IRHB shortline to the main trunk line to allow shipments of ore from the mines or they did and the plans changed. there is an old abandoned slate quarry near Skanee that's cool to see and believe (according to what I read) they were going to ship slate with the rail line also but never did.