Arn't trains related to tractors?

[EddieWalker]

Cool video. I've wanted to do one of those train rides in the mountains one of these days. I would only go in the Fall because of the aspens being golden then.

I've taken trains in Asia and Europe and enjoyed them. The last one was five years ago from Zurich to Innsbruck to Venice. The mountains where awesome. My wife and I where always watching for castles and then trying to get pictures of them as we went by them. One of our future vacations will probably be through Eastern Europe on the train.

 

[MossRoad]

I would have never guessed are that many. I would of guess less than 500. Maybe even 300.
I know there is 1 in Fort Worth and 1 in Grapevine.

The standing ones are easy to find. What I look for is the foundations of ones that are long torn down. It's a distinctive wagon wheel spoke pattern. If you use google earth, and follow a rail grade into a town, they were frequently located at a point where the tracks enter a yard area. Sometimes they were in the middle, but most times they were at an end. You look on the ground and see nothing, but you just have a hunch that "If I were a railroad, I'd put my roundhouse here". :laughing: So you use the history slider in google earth and go back in photos as far as you can, and 9 times out of 10, you'll see the foundation before the vegetation took over, or a new building was built on the area.

And sometimes, you can't find it, so you google the town's name + railroad + roundhouse or round house, and you'll find a history of the town, which railroads located there, where their workshops were located, the roundhouse, etc.... and you look at the map for the town and it's all houses or businesses. So, again, you use the history slider and go back to the 80's and boom, there it is.

I haven't been active on it for a few years, so I need to pull it up again and take a look. There were literally thousands of them over the years.

 

[MossRoad]

I also look for turntables and turntable pits, as well as transfer tables. :laughing:

 

[MossRoad]

Like this one in Logansport, IN. There's a turntable to the left, a roundhouse foundation to the right. The roundhouse is long gone and replaced with a rectangular building. Now look at the backside of the rectangular building and there's a transfer table.

 

[ArlyA]

I love industrial history and building of the transcontinental railroad is part of that, at least here in the USA. It tied our nation together.

 

[MossRoad]

I love industrial history and building of the transcontinental railroad is part of that, at least here in the USA. It tied our nation together.

You have a bunch of roundhouses in Michigan. Lots of rails around the iron ore areas of Minnesota leading out to the lakes, and timber back in the 1800s, too. Wisonsin as well.

 

[radios1]

I wonder if anyone modded a train into a tractor?. put steering on it, and rubber tires.. lots of power there!..

 

[MossRoad]

 

[ch1ch2]

That is so cool.
Where did you find that?

 

[bcp]

I wonder if anyone modded a train into a tractor?. put steering on it, and rubber tires.. lots of power there!..

Of course, the Russians did it first.

Bruce