Russell, is that third center rail power, possibly supplied by Lionel? Though I also see an outside third rail for overshot power. Oh wait, the outer rail is for DC and the inner rail for AC, Right?
Trees and chain link fences are my nemices: Thread: "Trains through the Trees and Other Solid Objects" https://www.trainboard.com/highball...-the-trees-and-any-other-solid-objects.19075/
Hardcoaler, just a few yards up the line for the low angle shot. My dad was an electrician and spent many of his younger days on the road to Joanna to run circuits for machinery and upgrade some of the electrical systems in the mill. I remember the old mill from the 70s. Ironically, I had flown home Sept 2017 for his funeral and snapped this pic while waiting for my sister to get off work, your pic is from Oct. I've watched/counted many a train car pass over us while fishing from a boat at Parr Shoals along the Broad River trestle at Frees Creek. If I remember right they were headed toward Union to a pulp mill.
This is what remains of the wye at Oblivion. This was originally a 3 ft narrow gauge operation which interchanged with standard gauge down in the valley at Piedmont. It sure would be neat to have it in use, but all the narrow gauge equipment was scrapped by 1930 ish.
"Eastward to Red Cliff" From the classic US Highway 24 overpass, we see the curve leaning into Red Cliff, the tiny town just peeking into the frame. This curve is 10° 30", so it's rather sharp, but rests on a 1.5% grade. Directly at the end of the curve, the grade doubles to a brutal 3% at milepost 294 for a brief tangent. Imagine the dynamics of train handling here--a sharp curve with a light grade, straightening out and doubling the climb simultaneously. The steely determination, years of hard-earned experience and a careful hand on the throttle and brake levers is what it took to ascend this tortuous grade. My hat's off to you who earned your paychecks operating trains here!
Taken yesterday at CP Lyman in upstate SC looking north is an interesting detail. NS is favoring wye turnouts at sidings. Rather than slowing trains for the diverging route as in typical layouts, a wye turnout halves the angle and speeds can be maintained without installing a large, high-numbered turnout, at least that's my guess. I waited here for 40 minutes with not a train in sight on a very noisy (but safe) highway bridge. Because of the noise and the curve, this is the kind of location where a train appears in an instant and you have to be ready.
You only need high-number switches at sidings if speeds are high. In PSR, what's speed? Nice shot. Wye switches are still rare around here.
In the SC upstate at Belton on Friday, I found the former SOU depot and an interesting historical marker. The track in the foreground is phony. The Pickens and the Greenville & Western operate segments of the SOU and P&N in the area and are doing well. There's more to see in the region and I hope to return soon.
Also in Belton, SC I found something pretty cool - a shortline to shortline interchange. While I was there, the Pickens ventured down to the G&W's yard on the track seen to pick up a cut of boxcars to combine with its own train and take north. Also of interest is that neither railroad is owned by a national shortline conglomerate -- both lines are privately owned by different people.
I am surpised the Pickens still exists. For a while all they did was store useless PD boxcars. Something must have really changed.
@BoxcabE50 Thanks, I had no idea what 'PD' meant and why would they be 'useless'. So, I googled it. Ok, I can see how boxcars may be on the way out. I did not understand *anythhing* about 'pickers'. What are they? Thanks!
I'm assuming Boxcab was referring to 'Per diem' boxcars, the program in the 70's and 80's before deregulation that made it attractive for shortlines to acquire boxcars in response to a 'shortage' of cars. A lot of those weird paint schemes from unknown railroads were PD cars. It didn't work very well because the program didn't address the root cause of the problem: the ICC basically strangling railroads by enforcing car rates. Pickens (not 'pickers' - I think you made a misspelling or misreading) is the railroad in Hardcoaler's photo.
You hit it on the head. The Pickens that we know was later abandoned in its entirety, but in the mid-1990s, the road's owners negotiated with NS to operate a new segment of line some 30 miles south from the original line.