Abandoned Railroads

[Josh The Lighthouse Guy]

Virginia Creeper is on my To Do list.

I've done a couple nice rail trails here in Florida.

Passenger rail was nice. Guess most of what's left is coal haul.

I see fuel tanks, automobiles, sand/gravel, and a fair number of boxcars. Some long-distance shipping of tractor trailers. Sugar from Florida still gets shipped by rail from the Glades.

I wish we could get more long-distance freight off the interstate highways and onto the railroads. Too many tractor trailers on the roads.

 

[Lubliner]

Virginia Creeper is on my To Do list.

I've done a couple nice rail trails here in Florida.



I see fuel tanks, automobiles, sand/gravel, and a fair number of boxcars. Some long-distance shipping of tractor trailers. Sugar from Florida still gets shipped by rail from the Glades.

I wish we could get more long-distance freight off the interstate highways and onto the railroads. Too many tractor trailers on the roads.

Good wish!
Lubliner.

 

[Peace Society]

I wish we could get more long-distance freight off the interstate highways and onto the railroads. Too many tractor trailers on the roads.

You would think it would be the most efficient to have all semis hauling locally from the nearest rail hub.

 

[Lubliner]

You would think it would be the most efficient to have all semis hauling locally from the nearest rail hub.

Fed-ex.
Lubliner.
@Grant's Tomb Jimmy Breslin wrote 'The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight' but I never knew he ran for Governor. He wasn't talking Boston in that book.
Lubliner again.

 

[Peace Society]

Fed-ex looks local, but they haul and fly a lot of stuff themselves.

 

[Will Carry]

This is a good video of the Nemo railroad tunnel near Wartburg Tennessee. How to get to it is a secret.

 

[Peace Society]

When was that built? The manpower! The engineering! Yow.

 

[Will Carry]

This is such a great post! I love this sort of stuff!

The Nemo Tunnel 24 was bored in 1878, and carried the CNO&TP/CS through the mountain at Nemo, Tennessee. The Flood of 1929 washed away all the bridges and the tunnel was abandoned. I drove through it in an old Toyoda Corolla back in the 90s. There is a REAL railroad tunnel right next to the old tunnel. If you drive through the old tunnel you will have to drive next to the existing railroad to get to the trail down to the confluence of the Emory and Obed rivers. (It's Illegal but....) A nice place to picnic. The name NEMO is not a reference to the motto of Scotland. The people in this area are German Americans. The train stations were in alphabetical order and NEMO was the "N" stop. There are abandoned tracks everywhere on the Emory\Obed watershed for removing timber back in the day. The locals say the tunnel is haunted.

Here is but a taste of what the area has to offer. This is Daddy's Creek Canyon that empties into the Obed River. I took this picture with a throw away film camera back in 1993. This is right above the canyon rapids, Snake Dance Trilogy, Rocking Chair and Gurkin's Crack.

 

[Josh The Lighthouse Guy]

This is a good video of the Nemo railroad tunnel near Wartburg Tennessee.

First railroad tunnel I've heard of that it's possible to drive through (legally or not - 99% of them its logistically impossible).

[EDIT to fix misspelling]

 

[Will Carry]

First railroad tunnel I've heard of that it's possible to drive through (legally or not - 99% its logically impossible).

It's legal to drive through the tunnel but driving on the existing railroad track is considered trespassing.

 

[Pecosbill]

A few years back I went with my cousin to visit the abandoned tracks of the old Weldon Railroad which ran through the woods not too far from his house in North Carolina. The Weldon Railroad was considered the "lifeline of the Confederacy" as it was the main means of shipping materiel from the port of Wilmington to Lee's troops during the siege at Petersburg. During that trip my cousin and I dug up several old railroad spikes from the tracks. My cousin, being a custom knife maker and blacksmith took one of the spikes, heated it up, twisted and hammered and polished it and made it into a nice letter opener for me. That's something you don't see everyday!

 

[RobertP]

This popped up on my feed yesterday. The Blue Ridge RR tunnel has been opened to the public. Located in Nelson Co., Va., near Charlottesville, the tunnel was finished in 1858 and is some 4300' in length under the Blue Ridge at Rockfish Gap. What an amazing accomplishment in the day!

Blue Ridge Tunnel - Hikes & Trails in Afton | Nelson County, Virginia

Afton, Virginia. Walk the restored 1850s Blue Ridge Railroad tunnel on a 2.25-mile crushed-gravel path with dramatic stone portals linking Afton and the Rockfish Valley. The Blue Ridge Tunnel, engineered by Claudius Crozet in the 1850s beneath Rockfish Gap, now lets hikers and cyclists travel...

www.nelsoncounty.com

 

[Lubliner]

This is some exciting stuff, the actual infrastructures from such a bygone era that played a huge role in the age of Mechanization. To me it is equal to the Pyramids in Egypt, proving a time when manpower and and might worked with success along with highly developed skills, and designs. The abilities of sheer will in these times of our own civil war appear as miraculous as any wonder of the world, and I feel cannot be matched by one-up-man-ship which is the big problem in our competitive world today. We cannot defeat ourselves just to become better than the former times.
Lubliner.

 

[th'anchoriticsybarite]

Two points. When railroad unionization reached critical mass, the railroads realized that from a profitability standpoint they did not need passenger traffic to make a profit. By simply abandoning passenger rail and concentrating exclusively on freight traffic, they could increase their profits by several HUNDRED percent.

Secondly, I'm 70 years old and it was only about a year ago that I understood something about the Interstate Traffic System. I assume you all know that Eisenhower initiated the Interstate System in the mid 50's. The idea was to mimic Hitler's autobahn system in Germany. Given that everyone feared the thawing of the Cold War into a VERY hot war with the Soviets, it was obvious that the US had to be able to move massive amounts of troops and material very quickly. I remember as a child actually counting over 100 trucks moving down the highway multiple times.

What I did not know until a couple of years ago was why the Interstates had not only double lanes on either side BUT the huge swathe of ground in the middle. As originally envisioned, after the actual highway was emplaced, stage 2 would be the utilizing the central lane to construct a light rail system. Simply put for a reasonable fee, instead of flying from Augusta, Ga to Los Angeles, you would instead drive your car up on a rail car and ride there by rail. Or to Portland, or Dallas, or St Louis, or Chicago, or NY. Although the trip would be slightly longer, the cost would be significantly lower. No only that but, the cost of maintaining/repairing the interstates would be drastically lower but wear and tear on cars themselves would allow drivers to keep cars significantly longer. Instead of trading in your current car every 5-10 years, your car could easily last 2 or 3 times as long. Imagine how much every family could save under such a system.

 

[KianGaf]

Walkway over the Hudson is the most amazing use of a former railroad track I have seen - it has the best views! I remember when the old railroad bridge burned and it sat there unused for years. This was a wonderfully imaginative way to repurpose it.

I seen that on the BBC show Great American Railroads it looks fantastic.

 

[Peace Society]

the Interstate Traffic System. I assume you all know that Eisenhower initiated the Interstate System in the mid 50's. The idea was to mimic Hitler's autobahn system in Germany. Given that everyone feared the thawing of the Cold War into a VERY hot war with the Soviets, it was obvious that the US had to be able to move massive amounts of troops and material very quickly. I remember as a child actually counting over 100 trucks moving down the highway multiple times.

What I did not know until a couple of years ago was why the Interstates had not only double lanes on either side BUT the huge swathe of ground in the middle. As originally envisioned, after the actual highway was emplaced, stage 2 would be the utilizing the central lane to construct a light rail system. Simply put for a reasonable fee, instead of flying from Augusta, Ga to Los Angeles, you would instead drive your car up on a rail car and ride there by rail. Or to Portland, or Dallas, or St Louis, or Chicago, or NY. Although the trip would be slightly longer, the cost would be significantly lower. No only that but, the cost of maintaining/repairing the interstates would be drastically lower but wear and tear on cars themselves would allow drivers to keep cars significantly longer. Instead of trading in your current car every 5-10 years, your car could easily last 2 or 3 times as long. Imagine how much every family could save under such a system.

How interesting! Didn't know that second part. The first is pretty obvious when you see a massive double four lane highway coming to an abrupt end at Ft Benning.

 

[lupaglupa]

What I did not know until a couple of years ago was why the Interstates had not only double lanes on either side BUT the huge swathe of ground in the middle. As originally envisioned, after the actual highway was emplaced, stage 2 would be the utilizing the central lane to construct a light rail system.

How I wish we had done something like that! Here in New York they proposed using that middle grassy area to lay fiber optic cable. Don't know if they did it or not.

 

[Lubliner]

Two points. When railroad unionization reached critical mass, the railroads realized that from a profitability standpoint they did not need passenger traffic to make a profit. By simply abandoning passenger rail and concentrating exclusively on freight traffic, they could increase their profits by several HUNDRED percent.

Secondly, I'm 70 years old and it was only about a year ago that I understood something about the Interstate Traffic System. I assume you all know that Eisenhower initiated the Interstate System in the mid 50's. The idea was to mimic Hitler's autobahn system in Germany. Given that everyone feared the thawing of the Cold War into a VERY hot war with the Soviets, it was obvious that the US had to be able to move massive amounts of troops and material very quickly. I remember as a child actually counting over 100 trucks moving down the highway multiple times.

What I did not know until a couple of years ago was why the Interstates had not only double lanes on either side BUT the huge swathe of ground in the middle. As originally envisioned, after the actual highway was emplaced, stage 2 would be the utilizing the central lane to construct a light rail system. Simply put for a reasonable fee, instead of flying from Augusta, Ga to Los Angeles, you would instead drive your car up on a rail car and ride there by rail. Or to Portland, or Dallas, or St Louis, or Chicago, or NY. Although the trip would be slightly longer, the cost would be significantly lower. No only that but, the cost of maintaining/repairing the interstates would be drastically lower but wear and tear on cars themselves would allow drivers to keep cars significantly longer. Instead of trading in your current car every 5-10 years, your car could easily last 2 or 3 times as long. Imagine how much every family could save under such a system.

I had heard the Interstate when built had a purpose for landing aircraft on emergency landings. Generally the plan was at least a mile or two between overpasses in case of that need. Of course the system is dated and whether military or civilian big planes could do so now I don't know. Either way, small craft can use it, but they better have a loud foghorn.
Lubliner.

 

[rebelatsea]

How I wish we had done something like that! Here in New York they proposed using that middle grassy area to lay fiber optic cable. Don't know if they did it or not.

Use of railway right of way for communication cables of one sort or another is common in the UK. I worked on on project which failed for that very reason. The cost of unearthing and rerouting everything made our project prohibitively costly - plus certain agencies rejected the suggestion out of hand !

 

[JeffFromSyracuse]

The O&W is on this map. My hometown was on the mainline, which ran from Oswego, NY to Weehawken, NJ. Its main source of revenue were the coal mines in Scranton, and once that dried up, there was absolutely no purpose for a railroad skirted all of the major cities in New York.

Most of the trackage was torn out after the road went bankrupt in 1957. A long stretch of the mainline in Oswego County is maintained by NYS as a recreation trail. By coincidence, I live about a mile and a half from the terminus in Weehawken - there's no evidence a station ever stood there.