Locally, I’d agree with Espeefoamer and say the SP main line from Niles to Tracy.
Others I’ve visited on my travels are the MILW line to Rapid City, the “Lines West” in Missoula MT, and the EP & SW “Southline” from El Paso to Tucson…
the best engineered route over the cascades the Milwaukee road from seattle to Spokane
I just read a great new book about the IT by Dale Jenkins…street running…3.5% grades trackage rights,interurban belt lines, the McKinley bridge…it’s really sad to see what’s left of the once impressive elevated line through St Louis. I heard the big terminal building with the subway entrancein St Louis is going to be sold.Alot of their stations marooned out in the weeds still…I met the folks that own the old station on the Danville line…it’s used as a farm storage building…sad…
Unfortunately I never witnessed one of my favorite mainlines in action, only just in family pictures and stories. The Great PERE MARQUETTE!!! The mainline of which I speak ran from Midland, MI. to Ludington, MI. I used to be able to see the remains of the track bed and a trestle belonging to this once majestic RR, all from the rear deck of my home.[:D]
The DT&I mainline from Washington Court House, Ohio to Jackson. It was a little tast of mountain-style railroading for us flatland hillbillies here in the Buckeye State.
i don’t necessarily have a favorite once-mainline. when i’m out and about driving around and i see an abandonded right of way i wish i could go back in time to see it in action…
I miss the Reader Railroad in Arkansas. Rode it several times in the 1960s.
Is the Reader Railroad abandoned? SAY IT ISN’T SO, ETHEL!! I had my only cab ride (on a steamer, no less!) on the Reader. Long live the Possum Trot Line, if only in memory.
The one through Fairfield IL the OLD B&O. There is several bridges left and 1/4 of the crossings but buried left. I mess the old B&O.
Nope mine sure isn’t it has 150 Trains a day the BNSF Chicago Sub:D
I miss the old Michigan Central/Conrail air line that ran between Jackson, MI and Elkhart, In. The line ran behind my fathers parents house and cut through the middle of my moms parents farm. It was quite active until the late 70’s and abandoned in the early 80’s. I can still remember running out at Christmas and Thanksgiving to check the signals for my dad. He ended up with Conrail for 29 years, leaving after the CSX/NS merger. Dennis
Well if I had to pick a favorite line I would have to say the Sunset, and it’s bussier than ever. But loosing the Modoc hits close to home.
Is there any site so desolate as an abandoned railroad ?
Saw one in New Zealand’s South Island in 1990 - Probably was hydro-electric powered using catenary, just before diving in a tunnel on the Trans-alpine route - very saddening !!
Two lines come to mind: one from my childhood in Connecticut and the other from later years in Iowa.
I grew up in a small town just north of Bridgeport, Connecticut near what used to be the Pequonock River Valeyy line of the Housatonic Railroad. It ran from Bridgeport north through Trumbull, Monroe, Stepney and Newtown, where it linked up with what became the New Haven’s “Maybrook Line”. The line through my hometown was shut down and abandoned in the 1930, so when I first saw it in the 60’s as a kid, it was just a path through the woods with the occasional stone cut or concrete abutment to remind you it once carried trains. I would have loved to see the old steam engines that once ran on the line. My elderly next door neighbor’s father used to be the staion master at the Trumbull depot.
The second line was the former Rock Island Chicago to KC main that ran through Southeast Iowa and had a huge yard and division point at Eldon, Iowa. It was still running back in the mid to late 70’s when I worked in nearby Ottumwa, which saw brancnh line trains runn from Eldon through Ottumwa and on up to Oskaloosa before that line too was abandoned and ripped up. I went back several years after the “Rock” (how funny) crumbled. It was all overgrown, but here and there you could still see a culvert or even an old signal post with broken flags or lenses that looked like it was left behind to signal “ghost trains”. Always makes me kind of melancholy to remember those images.
Significant portions of the Jersey Central (Central Railroad of New Jersey) mainline are gone in both New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
I asked someone at the “Welcome to Arkansas” booth on the Interstate a few years back and she said "(the Reader Railroad) “is gone”. True (I hope not).
WHEN I WAS AT THE AGE FROM 5 TO 10 I USED TO SIT AT THE ERIE LACKAWANNA YARD IN NIAGARA FALLS ,ATHER SCHOOL AND ON THE WEEK END SUMMER TIME YOU KNOW WHAT I SAYING THERE. I MET AND MISS ALL THE T/E CREWS THAT WERE MY BEST FRIENDS. WHEN IN 1964 THE CITY AND STATE MOVED THE ERIE,LV AND THE NYC OUT OF THE FALLS I SAT AT THE END OF THE DEAD END STREET AND CRYED WHEN THEY WERE RIPPING OUT THE TRACKS. I WILL NEVER FORGET THE CAB RIDES I HAD TO THIS DAY.
Well my fav. has to be an abondonment that was saved known as th Wisconsin Great Northern, a roughly 32 mile shortline opperating out of Sonner wis. BUT YES EVEN THOUGH IT OPERATED THE TRACKS ARE IN THE WEEDS, but that’s the way I like it.
Im with ya rusty i miss that line too, so did you ever find thsoe VHS tapes of the line???
I have two, kind of,…
- The first is the line from Lincoln, Nebraska to the coal power plant about 50 miles east near Nebraska City. Although not really a main line it provided about a 5 trains a day.
Although it wasn’t the busiest line in the world the traffic was timed perfectly for me. The days coal train would come through around 3 or shortly after (right after school growing up) and return around 10 empty, with helpers returning sometime in between.
I asked on a forum (maybe it was this one) what became of the line. I had left for college and upon coming back hadn’t seen a train since. According to whoever answered my question (thanks again btw) the power plant bought the line from outside Lincoln to their facilities and they now get their coal from Union Pacific via Omaha along the Missouri River on a different line.
The Cement plant down the highway a ways still in town (Lincoln) no longer receives rails service. I remember fondly the locals with the unique “Big Red Line” short hopper cars. There appearance often indicated the coming of summer construction and more importantly for me at the time summer vacation :-). I’ve often wondered if this was a result of the line being sold or the cement plant giving up on the rails.
The line itself looks in good shape but I think its only a matter of time before it gets ripped up at least outside of Lincoln.
When I saw crews poking around by the state pen I wondered if they were ripping track out entirely but they were actually building new industrial spurs for the former Fleming plant near the State Pen. The Warehouse receives a short cut of boxcars everyday but never quite makes it to my former home and pretty much east of that it goes from well maintained line to grass and weeds. Every once in awhile the local ventures close enough to make the old crossing go down but never quite makes it to my old childhood stomping grounds.
- My second is a line I never actuall