Does anyone have new rail construction going on in your area? The UP just put a new spur in to a can manufacturing facility here in town. Prior to that, they shipped and received everything via truck.
Just curious.
Tom
Do you mean real or on a model? In the real world, I watched a run-around siding being installed on the San Pedro & Southwestern tourist line several years ago.
An item in the Tucson newspaper last week concerns a plan by UP to lay 15 miles of new track beginning next year to eliminate a long loop where the track passes over and under Interstate 10, thus eliminating a low bridge that constricts I-10 traffic. A $33 million project, because I-10 is also going to be rebuilt for a 2-mile stretch after the railroad removes their bridge.
I think this is something that was hidden in the recently enacted highway bill, because the UP just completed replacing all of the wooden crossties with concrete ones along the entire loop that is now going to be removed.
The Old Colony Commuter Rail serving the South Shore of Boston has been under construction for the past decade. Two of the 3 branches are in operation the third met w/ major setbacks due to enviornmental concerns and public objection(mainly from one spoiled NIMBY town of Hingham, Ma.) The threat of suits lead to litigation of a so called tunnel under the main business district. Of coarse these delays of almost 8 years and the tunnel have added $150 million to the pricetag of the project. Last year they were given the green light and I have been watching the progress since.
Last summer, I was converting what origionally was the freight house for the old NH line to a retail/ office complex in the small village of Cohasset, Ma. (By the way my friend and fellow club member has a LHS there- very convenient) The engineering firm hired by the general contractor for the project had tempararily taken one of the existing offices in the building. This was unbelievable, to get the firsthand info on the workings of the project. At this time, most of what was being done was surveying, drainage and relocating portions of the James Brook.
Directly across from this building/ freight house is where the engine house, turntable and various engine facilities were. The University of Ma.,Amhest was there conducting an archaological dig of the site. Watching the progress of the dig, 70ft pit from the turntable, and the unearthing of the stalls and inspection pits(3) was exquisite. One of my club members had made copies of old RR maps/ plans of this very site. It was facinating to watch as things were uncovered exactly where the old plan showed. Every piece was documented, pipes lanterns, oil cans, loose stones footings etc. This was quite an exciting 2 months, and my heart sank when the facility was bulldozed over w/ fill to ready the area for town parking. Ahhh progress…
Well, now after a year most of the utilities, crossings, bridges and a good part of Hingham’s tunnel is nearly complete. One note; this is not
If you’re talking about Real Railroad Construction, not model construction, then yes there has been quite a bit of railroad construction around Princeton Indiana and Evansville Indiana. Norfolk Southern is adding a long new siding East of Princeton to store autoracks on, NS serves the Toyota plant there, and CSX who also serves Toyota, is putting in a double track main line that starts at the South end of Princeton by the CSX/NS diamond and I think the double tracking will go for several miles South towards Evansville Indiana. I talked to a former NS conductor about this who lives at Princeton. Right now the track south of Princeton on CSX is single tracked with CTC signals. The Conductor said that the CSX Division through there, I think it’s called the CE&D sub, is the second heaviest used Division on CSX, the traffic through there just keeps going up every year, in the 1990s there was about 20 trains on CSX, and now I think there’s about 40 trains on CSX and 20 on NS a total of about 60. When they get these new tracks installed, the number of trains on CSX could be up to 45-50 and NS may have 2 or 3 more trains a day, making a new total of about 70.