While taking a cross country trip with my family on the Amtrak California Zephyr (which is an adventure for another post), I observed a lot of scenery in between keeping kids occupied. Some of this scenery I saw consisted of a lot of abandoned property or scenes. Just to name a few, there were vehicles, rusty railroad cars, out of service trackage, weedy siding, and so forth. One thing that caught my eye was in Colorado, west of Grand Junction. After traveling through the canyon and following the Colorado River, I saw what looked to be an embankment that curved South off the main line. This embankment evidently used to go over a stream as evidenced by a âdaylightedâ gap and one standing cement culvert on the East. I have no idea where it led to or if it were just a former road.
As having to literally abandon my sectional model railroad recently due to a move, there lies a lot of potential ahead.
I have the opinion that a model railroad will look more realistic if the modeler can incorporate the passage of time. Us humans abandon quite a bit of things throughout history and it probably wonât take much to show this. The scene I described above could be modeled with pink foam, ground cover, ballast or a weedy road, a stream, and a culvert portal. I wonder what other such scenes can be found.
I am planning to model the DRGW at Grand Junction and westward because I like the scenery in that area. I road through in 1990 on the Amtrak CZ and have photos of that area in my Rio Grande books.
I, too, like to observe âslices of lifeâ that I can translate into model railroad scenes.
I rode the CZ back in 2003 and saw some of the same things you describe. Over the years the main line has been realigned and, as you mention, many tunnels and snowsheds daylighted and curves eliminated.
While riding the old C&O main line through West Virginia I saw some smaller tunnels that were bypassed in track realignment upgrades.
My good friend Paul Dolkos showed me where/how he depicted abandoned track. He did that with adding some ground foam and tall grass growing on the track. I plan on replicating that a bit on my current layout with some weed-infested track alongside the mainline.
Incorporating the âold and newâ does make the layout more realistic. Frankly, it also makes things more enjoyable too. Of course plenty happy to keep things pristine.
The cinders once used for ballast, and the creosote used to treat ties, often inhibit vegetation growth years, decades, after the track has been removed. I have seen the tell tale signs of railroad ties on a long abandoned siding where grass grows between where the ties used to be, but hardly anything grows where the ties actually were. And again this was decades after the rail and ties were pulled up.
Another thing commonly seen trackside - old concrete footings for signal masts, water towers, bases for trackside shanties and even small depots. Sometimes you see a concrete loading ramp in the middle of nothing, just a ramp leading to nothing.
And of course telegraph and telephone poles can still be found trackside.
A few years ago a friend and I decided to try to follow the remains of the old Milwaukee Road line that went south of Rochelle IL, separated from the CB&Q/BN at Stewart Junction, continued on down to Mendota IL, and from there further south to the coal mine areas near Ladd and Cherry and such. Google satellite view was our friend and I took many notes. Sometimes a gentle rise in a country road was the evidence that a long gone grade crossing had been there. Now and then a scar from a cut or fill was still visisble but farming activity can obliterate these clues. Grain elevators and other structures at an illogical angle to the road grid can be another clue, as can utility lines marching off at their own strange angle. At one obscure country road we found rails still embedded in the old asphalt. And in a farmerâs backyard we spied what clearly had been a small railroad depot.
This kind of rural industrial archeology can be tremendous fun. Once we were trying to find the route of the long long gone Galesburg & Great Eastern Railroad. A siding off the BNSF into the weeds seemed to be promising evidence - and a BNSF signal maintainer who noticed us crawling around on the property confirmed that
Way back in â98 I built a 12â protolance switching layout I called CRâs Toledo âRiver Front Industrialâ. Of the seven indusries only 5 remained rail served.
I had a former rail served industry that still had its weed covered siding but,the switch was removed. I used Woodland Scenics Medium Green Clump Foliage for weeds with miscellaneous industrial junk,a home made old rusty overhead crane for unloading steel from gons ,a junk forklift and a home made dumpster. Two small trees (1") had also taken route and started their growth. The other industry, a rail to barge gravel loading dock that cease operation and all that remained was its locked gate and rusty rails leading to the off layout dock.
Iâm very interested in having some abandoned buldings and infrastructure in my urban chicago layout. That sort of thing is so common around here that it wouldnât feel complete without it.
⌠that sits across the street from my usual Aldi, and thereâs a faller kit thatâs not too far off, but Iâm pretty sure I wonât have the space to dedicate to it. Maybe a background flatâŚ
Being a former Chicagoan, I am quite familiar with that tower. My wife grew up the first 20 years of her life in Cicero. She had relatives that worked there at the Western Electric Hawthorn Works facility.
I have done a lot of research on that building and the nearby former Sears complex. What amazing places those must have been. Basically cities within cities. The Hawthorn Works facility had around 45,000 employees and Sears had over 30,000 I believe.
When I was much younger (50 years ago) I had a blast following the defunct Southern Pacific logging roadbed in the Southern New Mexico mountains. There was a narrow gauge rail using standard gauge width track from Alamogordo (4350â AMSL) to Cloudcroft (9250â AMSL).
The logging track was all over the mountainous area around Cloudcroft. The Southern Pacific logged the area for their ties and built a recreational Lodge for SP executives later becoming the Cloudcroft Lodge.
Over many summers I followed where the old logging track had been. I finally stumbled onto some forgotten rails and I was in hog heaven. I managed to salvage a 4â section of the narrow gauge rail using a cutting torch, several trips.
The trestle across Mexican Canyon is now on the Natural Register of Historic Places. The trestle was restored by the USDA 2008/2010.
I have a polished 12â piece of historic narrow gauge logging rail on my display shelf.
I model modern era and there are abandoned railroad stuff all over the place. Of course, some of it abandoned for so long its getting overrun and harder to find.
Even back in the day when railroads were more plentiful, there were always mergers, bankruptcies, economic cycles causing businesses to cease. Its expensive to tear stuff down, so just let it rot.
On the new layout, Iâve got some space that doesnât work for tracks or buildings, but its too big to just scenic it. Iâm thinking about a valley/creek scene where an abandonded railroad bridge is barely standing and the ROW leading to it is overgrown. Or maybe just the bridge piers standing naked in the middle of the valley holding up nothing.
I found a pic on the 'net of an old coaling tower I see often in Newnan GA. The tracks underneath are used by a fairly busy branch line of the NS (or Iâm told CSX, hmm?). The more busy mainline crosses it at grade in the photo.
Not sure of the history, but the railroad seems to have rebuilt a lot of the trackage around it (no sign of a former yard that I can see), and yet still thought it too expensive to tear down.
I have simply extended dead-end sidings a few inches. In one spot, it simply crossed a road and is now paved over, with rusty track and old ties on the other side.
It kind of sounds like you may have seen some remnants of the Little Book Cliff Railway, but Iâm not 100% sure about that. I live in Colorado, but Iâve never been to that area. I couldnât find any photos, but I did find some information on it if youâre interested. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Book_Cliff_Railway
