Working rail roads and their tracks.

[Hay Dude]

Looking at the map MossRoad linked to and looking at abandoned lines that I am familiar with, I can understand why they were abandoned. They were industry driven dead end lines that became surplus when the factories shut down or the project was completed. Where I lived in Skagit County WA, there were two lines running up the river valley, one went as far as Concrete, about 30 miles east of the freeway, the second line ended at Rockport but was extended to Newhalem by Seattle City Light for their dam projects. The big lumber mills are gone, the cement plants shut down, the dams were completed.

Some of the lines in Whatcom county were also industry driven or were closed down with railroad mergers and railroads with drawing service, The Northern Pacific and Milwaukee Road each shipped one short train a day out of Bellingham. Between the two of them they made up about 20% of the rail traffic through town.

In many ways decrying the demise of the small railroads and their many spur lines is like mourning the loss of Sears or K-Mart. Their bad management and shortsightedness caused their demise and the competition filled the gap, and then some. With Sears and K-Mart, it's Amazon, Walmart and Costco, with the railroads it's trucking and the mega merger railroads, BNSF, CSX, Union Pacific and so on.

Railroads never could have put down enough steel to service all the store and shops trucks do. The result is we have better service, more choices, and lowered costs.

The bigger and more disappointing point being “the factories shut down”.
Now that industry output is nearly all made in China along with the jobs, railways and smaller shops that served the industries. We are at a point where entire industrial production and the trades they utilized are being lost forever.

 

[MossRoad]

Back in the early 70's the city of South Bend pushed for an extension of the South Shore Line into an industrial park on the Northwest side of the airport. They said "businesses are clamoring for rail and air connections." The rail spur serves about 30 factories.

Guess how many rail car loads entered or left that industrial park over the next 40 years? ZERO! That's right. ZERO! They had to replace the two road crossings twice over the decades due to truck traffic damaging the roads. Not rail traffic, because there was NONE. Only truck traffic.

About 10 years ago they ripped the tracks out and paved over the crossings.

The factories and warehouses are still there, operating away. Many have help wanted signs. They're making something there. And distributing things from there, too. But nobody is clamoring for rail access for the past 50 years.

It has little to do with China. It has a lot to do with on demand, the tax system, and the slowness of rail.

Nobody wants inventory in their warehouses, because they'll either be taxed on it or be stuck with it. Nobody wants to ship by rail because of the time it takes VS throwing it on a truck.

When I worked for a company shipping Military vehicles and Postal vans out of AM General in South Bend by rail, we had to order rail cars weeks in advance. They'd get them and then it would take a full day to get them onto the siding. We'd load them up over several days and call for pickup and it would take several days to get them removed and swapped out for more empty cars.

When I worked at the Newspaper, we received most of our newsprint by rail to our warehouse. It could take months for cars of paper to get from the mills in Canada to our paper warehouse here in town. Towards the end, it was very rare that we'd get a car load of newsprint. It was all being trucked in.

Just as the rails did in the canals, trucking is taking away from the rails. The only economical reason to ship by rail now is bulk.

When I watch the trains going through our town, over 100 trains per day, the majority of what I see are dedicated to shipping containers, automobile trains, tanker trains, coal trains (both directions, which is mind boggling), and steel trains. It seems that only about 1/4 of the trains are a mix of cars. Box cars with who knows what, lumber cars, things like that. A few times a year we'll see John Deere trains and the red tractor trains.

But for the most part, due to economics, the trains are dedicated to one product in bulk. Small manufactures ship by truck. And judging by the truck traffic on 80/90 that also runs through this town, somebody is shipping something, but not by rail. Again, nothing to do with China.

 

[caver]

I saw some guys video on this tunnel so I made a waypoint. I visited this back in October while camping in the area. This is maybe 10 miles west of Williams AZ. Lat 35.24684 Lon 112.33375

 

[MossRoad]

Wow, that looks interesting. How long was the tunnel?

 

[ArlyA]

Was it a narrow gauge RR?

 

[MossRoad]

Train hits barge... that's a new one.

Cleanup underway in Lee County after barge-train collision sends train cars into Mississippi River

A Burlington Northern Santa Fe train derailed after striking the nose of a barge that was on the main track, according to BNSF officials.

www.thehawkeye.com

 

[Aquamoose]

The Route of the Hiawatha Scenic Bike Trail (Official Website)

www.ridethehiawatha.com

This is close to me and I ride it every summer, sometimes twice. It’s said to be the best scenic bike trail in the USA. The 15 mile trail has 7 sky high trestles and 10 tunnels with one straddling the Idaho & Montana border and is 1.66 miles long! Breathtaking every time I go!

 

[MossRoad]

Wow!

 

[jjeff]

Anyone ever see or ride over the three firesteel river abandoned railway trestles in the Up? It's pretty neat site, fun ride, and it's in the Midwest. They reporpused them for snowmobile and orv use.

 

[dodge man]

I live near where the train hit the barge and derailed. It’s been on the local news for the last few days.

 

[scaredychicken]

Due to recent Rain, Flooding, Washouts, and Mudslides, many regions and highways in British Columbia Canada are currently under a state of emergency with evacuation orders (in one or two cases, entire towns / cities). We are not in any immediate danger where we are, however travel is very restricted or impossible.

It was a difficult Summer with the Wildfires just a few short months ago, and now this wetness.

Here is a photo taken yesterday, on the main Coquihalla Highway / Trans - Canada through the mountains. YIKES

the railroad is normally well above the highway. We do this drive several times each year.

Stay Safe everyone.

We had a beautiful day today.

CK

 

[Hay Dude]

The Route of the Hiawatha Scenic Bike Trail (Official Website)

www.ridethehiawatha.com

This is close to me and I ride it every summer, sometimes twice. It’s said to be the best scenic bike trail in the USA. The 15 mile trail has 7 sky high trestles and 10 tunnels with one straddling the Idaho & Montana border and is 1.66 miles long! Breathtaking every time I go!

View attachment 721072

View attachment 721073

View attachment 721076

Amazing! I wonder if we could even build something like that anymore with the entire generations of welders, steel erectors, and train/track building companies mostly now done by foreign countries?
Almost worth a trip across the country to enjoy that!
The video alone was beautiful. Thanks for sharing.
Must have made an amazing train ride….

 

[MossRoad]

Steel Dynamics has a huge structural steel and rail mill in Columbia City, IN. Amazing place making miles and miles of rail every year along with structural steel.

 

[MossRoad]

Due to recent Rain, Flooding, Washouts, and Mudslides, many regions and highways in British Columbia Canada are currently under a state of emergency with evacuation orders (in one or two cases, entire towns / cities). We are not in any immediate danger where we are, however travel is very restricted or impossible.

It was a difficult Summer with the Wildfires just a few short months ago, and now this wetness.

Here is a photo taken yesterday, on the main Coquihalla Highway / Trans - Canada through the mountains. YIKES

View attachment 721264 the railroad is normally well above the highway. We do this drive several times each year.

Stay Safe everyone.

We had a beautiful day today.

CK

I read a story last night that Vancouver is now cut off from the rest of the world by road. Only water and air access.

 

[ArlyA]

Steel Dynamics has a huge structural steel and rail mill in Columbia City, IN. Amazing place making miles and miles of rail every year along with structural steel.

View attachment 721266

I believe I seen some Columbia rails when I was cutting up old rails at my work.

 

[Hay Dude]

Steel Dynamics has a huge structural steel and rail mill in Columbia City, IN. Amazing place making miles and miles of rail every year along with structural steel.

View attachment 721266

Wonder how long it’ll be before they can’t meet stricter emissions standards and have to close

 

[5030]

Wonder how long it’ll be before they can’t meet stricter emissions standards and have to close

Bussey stays on top of emissions standards (He's the CEO btw). Don't see that happening. Steel Dynamics plants are state of the art in process and emissions. My old employer has one of their facilities located adjacent to the flat rolled mill in Butler, Indiana. That way, transportation costs are mitigated and profit is maximized.

 

[5030]

Steel Dynamics has a huge structural steel and rail mill in Columbia City, IN. Amazing place making miles and miles of rail every year along with structural steel.

View attachment 721266

You do know what the initial primary motivator for SDI to locate in Indiana was?

 

[RobS]

Steel Dynamics has a huge structural steel and rail mill in Columbia City, IN. Amazing place making miles and miles of rail every year along with structural steel.

View attachment 721266

We buy a lot of steel from them, I've toured their mill a couple of times. Pretty cool place. 2 electric melt furnaces. The scale of the facility is hard to comprehend.

 

[3 Horse Ranch]

This is close to me and I ride it every summer, sometimes twice. It’s said to be the best scenic bike trail in the USA. The 15 mile trail has 7 sky high trestles and 10 tunnels with one straddling the Idaho & Montana border and is 1.66 miles long! Breathtaking every time I go!

I haven't ridden much in the past few years, but that looks like an interesting ride. I'll be 71 next summer and rail grades are usually pretty easy riding, although a 30 mile round trip might be a bit much, but it would be fun to try. Although when I was in riding shape, distance wasn't that big of a deal as long as I was fueled and hydrated. Rode a metric century the week of my 60th birthday just to say I did it.