Along the former CPR St-Lin spur, September 1982, just as some fall colors started to appear: One could also "Insert track here" before trying the train. CPR had abandoned this line a few years earlier. During the 1970s our family lived about a half-mile or so from this line. I heard some trains coming through, once in a while. Then there were no more. But it was a nice place to take long walks as a family. The St-Lin spur ran from a junction at Blainville, with the main line up to St-Jerome and Mt-Laurier, straight to Ste-Anne-Des-Plaines, La Plaine, and finally St-Lin (now called Laurentides). At one model train club open house, I met a lady from St-Lin that remembers the trains that went up there. She shared some nice memories from that time. That was cool. Photo by my Dad.
In Memphis, TN for the past 10 or so years they have taken up old rail tracks that used to go from downtown to the out skirts of the city and have or are turning them into Green Lines, for walking, biking trails! It's actually really nice as the tracks have not been used for many years!
The same thing was done with the old CPR Ste-Agathe sub from St-Jerome all the way up to Mt-Laurier (which is a 3-hour drive up from where I live). They call that a "linear park" now. It starts around where the old St-Jerome depot is (now an arts and crafts center) and runs up the old right of way through the Laurentians a couple of hundred km. Since railroads hate heavy grades, it's a nice place for a bike ride. Another line that got the same treatment was the very old line along the north shore of the Ottawa river between Carillon and Grenville.
Made it up to Minot, ND to hang out with "Hemi" and see trains. We were waiting in the very cold below zero for this guy, so here is the Amtrak station looking east in the snow,
90-lb. rail transition to 115-lb, rail during KCS Gulfport-branch's conversion to CWR. The 90-pound rail was rolled in 1921. The 60+/- miles of 90-lb rail was used to replace 75-lb rail in the Gulfport yard. .
They did for sure. The ballast was cleaned and new added once all rails had been replaced. The speed was increased from 10 mph to 49 mph (Class 4). Traffic was increased from 6/wk to 10/wk, and 8-10 cars/trip to 30+/trip. We're hoping that when the CP/KCS merger is complete CP will be able to negotiate container service through the Gulfport State Port. That should require six-axle power.
The NP/BN/BNSF bridge over the Yellowstone in Bismark, ND. 1910 era and slated for replacement by the new outfit. I guess we will see if and when. There was a coal train in Mandan yard, just getting started on service, so it was going to be a couple of hours before anything headed over this, so we quietly wait.....
The old abandoned narrow gauge right of way heading down from Tennessee Pass into the Mitchell Creek drainage that flows into the Eagle River. Tracks were pulled after the tunnel was put through and the gauge widened to standard.
Interesting photo @BNSF FAN . I've never been to Blacksburg; need to get there sometime. The NS main should be pretty busy. An abbreviated NS line extends north and south from there, or at least did 20+ years ago. Looking at the state of the yard, perhaps no more.
Blacksburg used to be the home base for a very interesting local. There were a lot of old wooden bridges on the branches there that had weight restrictions. As a result, NS ran a spacer car between a pair of geeps to spread the engine weights out. Seems all of those have since been replaced and that operation is no more. The spacer car used was an old Southern 40 ft boxcar. As you can see it was fairly well weathered when I took this shot in 2002. The view here is from the other side of the tracks looking north.
Whoa, that's really cool. Great picture! Never knew about that. On my model railroad, I respect the prototype by never operating locomotives onto a coal unloading trestle at a local industry, using cars from the train as spacers.
Fire in the hole!!! Heat waves rise above a switch heater in Minot, ND: Ground blizzard at Control Point 106, milepost 10.6, BNSF Glasgow Sub, west of Minot, ND: