Eeeeek!!! Those rails have not been used in how long? Have those units even moved recently? What happens if a rail rolls underneath...? $$$ to pick them out of the weeds and mud?
Well, this was about 4 years ago when we were shuffling the museum collection using a borrowed locomotive. (None in the collection run.) Due to the sunken track there was a bit of a grade coming out of the "hole" and the borrowed power did not have any sand in the sandboxes. So we uncoupled the string at the two heavy locomotives and parked the two flat cars with a tank car and the observation car on the next track. Went back to get just the two dead locomotives and still could not pull them out. So, we got some shovels and piled ballast on top of the rails in front of the towing locomotive. The wheels crushed the ballast and made sand for us. Had to stand way back as some of the ballast stones would shoot out to the sides. Got the cars out that we needed and put the rest of the collection back on the storage track. We are hoping to get track down on our new site so we can have a museum again. http://texasrrmuseum.org/
Caught the head end of a Loram rail grinder this morning. Not sure if they were getting ready to start or just finishing up. Either way, looks like Kennesaw is going to have some smooth rails for a little while at least.
Given the heavy traffic on that route, I'll bet the Dispatchers can't wait until the Loram train moves on. Years back, I was told that it was the busiest single track (with sidings) route in the east. I'm not sure if that was the case, but I'll bet that CSX had added many miles of double track since then. I used to 'fan that line between Kennesaw and Cartersville with friends every year after attending the big August train show in the morning. I shot this at Moon (just north of Kennesaw) on 8/22/1996.
Nice shot. Moon is only a few miles up the road from the office. At one time, this was a super busy line but longer trains and lower traffic volumes have taken it out of contention for being considered a busy line anymore.
