Rail roads and their tracks.

[Hay Dude]

We have lots of trails along canals and old railroads here. No crime so far and lots of families in season.
Many houses back into the trail.

We are however in a low crime area.

On the NJ side, the trail goes into Trenton, super high crime area. I have never read about any crime on that trail. But I doubt anyone would use that section at night.

Couple points here:
1. what is going on on those trails that you DON’T know about?
2. One of my relatives writes for a big newspaper. Crime reporting can run the gambit from heavily reported to completely ignored. Many who report crime have agendas.

Along with farming, I manage several large properties owned by out of state owners. I have spent many harrowing moments running off strangers. Good thing I have big hands and used to fight in a ring. Some of those strangers are tough lookin hombres and it definitely gets your heart racing. Most are people “just passin through”. They park their cars illegally on the property and start trespassing the property’s trails looking for who knows what….
I think many are looking for opportunities to steal stuff sometimes.

Kids open gates and animals escape. That’s a freakin disaster and if we had rails to trails in my area, that would happen.

You might like the song “this land is your land, this land is my land”, but I don’t. If this land is MY land, then it’s MY land or my customers land and I don’t want people to have access to it through some rails to trails nonsense.

Put the rails to trails through PUBLIC land and don’t be ruining peoples PRIVATE property values and privacy with trails through their yards.

 

[MossRoad]

Here is a nice video about WWII era steam engines still working (not tourist) in eastern Europe today.

Man, what great sounds!!!

 

[MossRoad]

Here is a nice video about WWII era steam engines still working (not tourist) in eastern Europe today.

Did you notice around 6:25 one of them being dragged with locked wheels?

 

[ArlyA]

I certainly did. No brakes on there coal cars?

 

[caver]

An issue I have is I believe some ebikes are allowed on some trails. Yet my dual sport motorcycle is not. If motorized vehicles are not allowed, fine but don't make exceptions for ebikes.

 

[MossRoad]

I certainly did. No brakes on there coal cars?

I don't know... that was strange. I see smoke near the other end of the train. Maybe the other engine was pulling from the other side? Stretching the cars out? Who knows, but I've never seen that before.

 

[MossRoad]

An issue I have is I believe some ebikes are allowed on some trails. Yet my dual sport motorcycle is not. If motorized vehicles are not allowed, fine but don't make exceptions for ebikes.

Get off the trail, grandma!

We were on a trail by one of our kid's houses near Pittsburgh, and noticed that about half of the bikes were elderly people on e-bikes. They weren't going any faster than most of the other bikes. Several had what appeared to be their grandchildren on conventional bikes with them. The only bikes I didn't feel comfortable with were the spandex-clad hardcore cyclists going really fast. They are fast and quiet. Most have the courtesy to ring their bell or yell "On your left!" before they get to you, but a good portion do not.

 

[BravoXray]

At 3:40 in the video, the engine is being dragged backwards with it's drivers locked up too.

 

[jyoutz]

I have a weird hobby of following live, dead, abandoned railroad grades across the country with Google Earth looking for signs of existing or long gone roundhouses. I have a couple thousand pinned on Google Earth. If I get much time off in the future, I'll compile them in a spreadsheet and share the locations.

In my region, there are lots of 1880-1940s era narrow gauge logging railroads in the forested areas. The rails are gone and most of the wood ties are rotted. All that remain are scattered spikes and the rock rail bed grades. Many forest roads were built on top of these old rail beds.

 

[MossRoad]

In my region, there are lots of 1880-1940s era narrow gauge logging railroads in the forested areas. The rails are gone and most of the wood ties are rotted. All that remain are scattered spikes and the rock rail bed grades. Many forest roads were built on top of these old rail beds.

Yep. Maybe 20-30 years ago I used to hike an abandoned railroad grade with my father in-law. We'd walk about 1/2 a mile down the grade, just ballast, no rails or ties. Then we'd veer off to the left on an old spur running into a swamp that still had the ties. Then the ties would be double stacked, then crib stacked, eventually getting to 5-6 ties high. Then the spur ended in a lake where we'd go ice fishing. There were trestle posts sticking up through the ice.

Some digging into history books found that the spur went into the swamp and tresteled out into the lake a bit. They'd dig peat out of the lake and load it onto RR cars.

RR history can be pretty interesting.