I’ve been looking into abandoned railroads in the US lately - never imagined there’d be so many!
I’m interested to hear people’s favourite abandoned-railroad stories; the most interesting reasons that railroad’s fell into disuse.
I think my favourite so far is the railroad serving Centralia - the town that was abondoned because the coal mines caught on fire (and that will continue burning for another 250 years!). But I also love the mining stories - how not only railroads but also towns fade away as the precious commodies themselves fade away!
Not from the U.S, but one of the Canadian classics is the Pacific Great Eastern/BC Rail (name changed in 1972) Dease Lake extension, which was originally intended to run from a junction north of Prince George all the way to central Alaska, via Fort St James, Dease Lake and the Cassiar Asbestos mine, which would have been a major on-line customer.
The railway was owned by the Province of British Columbia, which sank enormous sums into hundreds of miles of difficult construction through rugged, remote terrain. Eventually the project was stopped when it became obvious that it was costing several times the initial estimates and there would be no traffic worth speaking of, as the dangers of Asbestos were becoming more well-known and poor economic conditions also decreased demand for other mineral and forest products from the area. Building all the way to Alaska would likely have bankrupted both the railway and Province.
When work halted in 1977 grading had been completed as far as Dease Lake, a distance of over 400 miles. Track has only ever been laid on just over half that distance, and some has never seen a revenue train. The completed portion has floated in and out of use along with major logging operations in the area, which as far as I know are the only customers the line has ever seen.
Everything north of Fort St James has been mothballed since 2008, when the loggers either moved on or switched to trucks. A tri-weekly local freight runs from Prince George to serve a couple lumber operations at Fort St James, a far cry from the planners’ lofty goals.
The locations I have mentioned probably sound unfamiliar, but can easily be found on Google Earth. The grade is readily visible, and can be followed all the way from Fort St James to Dease Lake if one has enough time.
Abandonded railroad stories nearly always are centered around one of two conditions - inadequate financial power - lack of sustaining traffic levels and frequently a combination of both.
Which railroad served Centralia? Back in '86 I sort of stumbled into town after having taken my family on a tour of a local coal mine. I had heard some report about it on the Philadelphia news but had forgotten the name. It all came back to me when I saw empty houses and streets. This was not long after people had started moving out. Never gave any thought to whatever railroad might be affected.
The Black River and Utica Railroad in NY died a-borning. Its builders took the approach of grading the line first, then laying track. I don’t believe they ever put any track down, but evidence of their efforts can still be found.
Foremost amongst the relics of that railroad is a long (1200’), deep (20’) cut near Houseville, NY. While the BR&U didn’t use the cut, the Glenfield and Western Railroad (long abandoned) did. As the BR&U was to run north-south (like the Utica and Black River it was intended to compete with), so did the cut (N 43 41’ 24" W 75 25’ 56").
Unfortunately, this placed it perpendicular to the prevailing winds. Combine those winds with the legendary snows of Tug Hill and you had a recipe for drifting the cut solid. Which it did on a regular basis. A wedge plow was generally used to clear snow from the line, but occasionally it came down to men with shovels.
I should also note that that the Utica & Black River was brought into the Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg, which itself became part of the NYC. The line was broken in the 1960’s, more to reduce property taxes than anything else, although traffic was drying up on the line even then.
Lehigh Valley RR served Centralia. Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centralia,_Pennsylvania ) says the fire started in 1962, and that rail service ended in 1966. I doubt the fire caused the abandonment, though - the fire didn’t become a real concern until 1979 (I drove through there a few times in early 1981, and then once in a while until about 1985). Instead, the general decline of anthracite coal mining in the region doomed the branch line. There was also a branch of the Reading RR a few miles away.
You are so right! The PGE [Pacific Great Eastern] was certainly a ‘victim’.
Historical facts seem to be pretty accurate in this WiKi article (of course, disclaimers apply) It does have a fairly detailed map of the completed ROW, and intended destinations. See link @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BC_Rail
a PDF presentation: “UBC Theses and Dissertations”
“The Pacific Great Eastern Railway and British Columbia author: Stephenson, Paul John [2012]”
FTL:[in part] "…Statistical analysis of the private and social values of the railway demonstrate that it was not feasible as a private venture and the amount of necessary investment to realize its social value made it an irresponsible project for McBride to initiate given the limited financial capacities of BC in 1912. This study concludes that the failure and ultimate insolvency of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway by 1918 was the result of mismanagement by Premier McBride in letting contracts which were incentive-incompatible with public interests and acted in violation of sections of the Railway Act; opportunistic contractors who, in the interests of maximizing profit, exploited
Asbestos is pretty neat in mining form. The rock feels like a bar of soap to the touch but it doesn’t chip when it fractures it kind of feathers off into pieces. Very bizarre material in raw form.