Everyone wants to go to Heaven; but no one wants to die. <
Actually, I am looking forward to my death. The dying may not be fun, but I know where I am going when I do die.
I came over here from the Tranis news E-mail. I thought it said, “Can I share my strange hubby with you?” That peaked my interest.
Dear David:
I too love to walk along old railroads. I was just recently in Northern California- from Santa Rosa to Eureka there is an abandoned rail line. We were in the area for 2 1/2 weeks and I really wanted to get out and hike along the line but my wife and bother and mother were not interested. I did take some pictures of a 1910 bridge over the Ell River. If I knew how to include them in this file I would. Thanks for the great pictures.
Cliff Herd
Tenn Valley RR Museum
Chattanooga TN
I’m still waiting for you to describe your strange hobby. I don’t see anything strange in what you’ve described.
I recently returned from a trip through the Panama Canal during which we stopped briefly at Puntarenas, Costa Rica. While strolling along the waterfront, I saw a bit of 3’ gauge track and part of a turnout buried in the asphalt in front of the bus station. Not another thing in sight related to railroads but there obviously was at one time. Sorry I didn’t get a photograph; it would have fit right in with yours.
Chuck
Dave, those are very interesting photos…and nicely composed, too.
Last summer, I walked over 7 km of the abandoned Esquimalt & Nanaimo Ry. on the north shore of Cameron Lake, between Parksville and Port Alberni. My interest is in abandoned rights of way, but mostly in trestles. I hope you won’t mind my adding a couple of my own modest photos to demonstrate that I, too, enjoy much of your unique hobby.
Regards,
-Crandell
It may be a lonely hobby, but what you do is unique, at least to me it is, and I really enjoy the photos.
Great Garden, there’s probably one like it here in Australia too, best thing is you have gone to the trouble to record yours. Keep it up!
Teditor
Excellent photos!
This my favorite hobby as well. I spend a lot of time on it. Its nice to know I’m not so alone here. Google Earth is an excellent resource. (Don’t rely on their “railroads” button for anything accurate, though.) I love old maps too. Often times I’ll look up lines on old maps… then find exactly where they went using Google Earth. Afterwards plan field trips. I have found neat old relics doing this =)
Another thing I’ll do is go to Google Images and type in keywords like: http://images.google.com/images?q=abandoned+rail&ie=ISO-8859-1&hl=en&btnG=Search+Images
This is an excellent site to look up old maps:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/rrhtml/rrmaprailindex1.html
I check this site every so often:
http://www.trainweather.com/aban.html
Yes, adding some unsharp masking will add some snap. Try 125, 1.5, 5 to start,
and adjust as needed. Also fade the unsharp masking to luminosity so as not
to affect the color. (Use 100% fade amount.) Great shots, I retouch advertising
photography for a living and enjoyed your work. Thanks for posting them.
great pics you should seriously consider doing a book. i used to walk the old monon line in and around bloomington indiana, and had a wonderful time at it. ain’t history great!
I don’t take photos, but old ROW’s fascinate me. Nothing like walking back into history and seeing what hasn’t been seen for years. There are some abandoned ROW’s around my city (Lynchburg, VA) that were used during the Civil War and were closed at the turn of the twentieth century. A tunnel on one of Lynchburg’s rails-to-trails was completed in the 1850’s. Check out this great resource that I’ve used to discover this history.
www.retroweb.com/lynchburg/rails.html
Thanks for encouragement and advice, esp. the emails I received. I used to use a nice Cannon F1, A1 and AE1 but since digital is free, I’ve been using a Nikon Coolpix 4MB. I know that 4MB is good for 300dpi (or ppi) at about 5X7 but don’t know if the enlargement resolution would be quite good enough for a book. Perhaps someone could comment (never thought to put them in a picture book).
Wonderful pictures, I vote for a book also!!!
I enjoy looking for right-of-way indicators as I travel. One of my favorites is the Auburn and Northern, a trolley line from Auburn NY to Port Byron on the mainline of the NYC. The line was only in use for about 25 years, and was abandoned before 1930, but you can still see the grade where it went through swamps and along the Owasco River. Also, houses were built across the R-O-W and finding where the grade starts on the other side is another challenge.
Dave,
Is that 4MB or 4 megapixel? 4 megapixel should be good enough for a full-page photo, my Olympus does 3.1 MP and I’ve had some great 7.5x10 prints made from them. If you want to do a “test-book”, check out some of the offerings from the following companies:
www.snapfish.com (a HP company)
www.imagestation.com (a Sony company)
www.cafepress.com
www.fedexkinkos.com
I’ve got a few similar photos on my website, one page that comes to mind is UP Photo Albums. I also enjoy following old r-o-w, though I primarily bike those that are now bike trails:
www.fuzzyworld3.com/bicycling3.html
Thanks; yes, megapixel. My bust. By “test-book” do you mean a website?
Well, that would work too… The companies whose websites I posted can print some kind of photo book, and some of them would allow you to add captions as well, so you could see what a book of your photographs would look like! CafePress even offers a venue for you to offer them for sale.
Loved the photos. I almost felt I was walking through the woods in some secluded area. The most wonderful thing about railroads, they usually blend in with nature, not destroying,like our highways.
It’s not so strange. One variant you might try is to do some archaeological trekking along lines that are still in service. There are a lot of old coal trestles, signal tower foundations, spurs to abandoned industrial sites and equipment shoved into the weeds and forgotten. My best discovery was the terminal of an abandoned narrow guage line in Caldera, Costa Rica. All the locomotives and rolling stock was still there as well as maintenance equipment and facilities. Fascinating stuff. Another time I got into an abandoned Reading Co. roundhouse in wilmington, DE and came out with some collectable hardware and a 1948 employees operating timetable. Ah the thrill of discovery! Just watch out for the post 7/11 security aparatus.
Great photos. I also enjoy hiking along old railroad grades in northern Wisconsin which had many shortline logging railroads in the early 1900’s. Some of the old government quadrangle maps I have show the tracks which gives a good reference point. Sometimes you can still find a rotting tie, rusting spike or lump of coal.
I don’t think its so strange. Many times in my life(I am now 70) I have come across old tracks and in some cases followed them. It’s always fun to wonder what their original
purpose was and imagine them as having trains on them. Try surfing the web, searching “abandoned railroads”. You will like what you find. Some stuff in the New York City area is very interesting, also spots like Hawaii. You are not as strangeas you think you are. Just have fun and if possible, share it with others. Also check the book dealers, you would be pleasantly surprised to see how many titles have the word “abandoned” in them.
Marvin Cohen