If a town opened a new railroad viewing park, already offered: A river, Canal, Railroad Museum, 3 rail lines on a 4 track Line, one of the only still operating control towers along CSX, Many restaurants, Antiquing, and a small railroad town atmosphere, would you visit it.
Say the park was a raised viewing pavilion with some vending machines[:)] and a scanner[:)], with a display on history of the line/area you are viewing[:)], clear view of over 40 trains a day[:)], a bell donated to the city by the B&O itself[:)], and possably some rolling stock[:)], all on the site of an old RR YMCA[:)] (Don’t even talk about the villiage people). Would you go?[?]
If it offered me a vantage point for legally and safely photographing trains I would gladly go, and I would try to patronize some of the merchants in that town.
That having been said (and agreed with), I would point out that “over 40” trains a day probably averages out to one every half hour…not that much by “hot spot” standards, and possibly not enough to keep the casual public from being disappointed.
Well, I’d love to go to a place like that! It sounds great! I probably wouldn’t go there unless it was close to where I live, though. If I was on vacation anywhere near the area I would make sure not to miss out on it.
I probably would but only if I was in the area already. I don’t usually go on rail dedicated trips. If something is where we or I am going I like to stop in, but like most of us…time and money don’t support dedicated rail trips.
OK, heres the deal, I’m considering convincing my community to set up a park, similar to rochelle, There is currently a park called “Railroad View Park” but it only has an open grassy spot, a few trees, and the sidewalk from the YMCA that burnt in 1980.
As for the “Over 40 trains a day” CShaveRR, I have seen a Pentrex video from Rochelle (see the webcam) of all of the trains that came through in a day, and there were only 35,authough they said the average is around 40, and rochelle is considered a hotspot.
Yes this would be in Brunswick Maryland, with the C&O canal & towpath, and near other places such as: Point Of Rocks, home of a very popular historic station, that there is an HO Scale model of on the market (See www.trainclocks.com to see what it looks like), and also near Harpers Ferry, Frederick, Sharpsbug, and a fairly short druve from: The walkersville Scenic Railroad (www.wsrr.org, the hagerstown Roundhouse Museum, and the Western Marland Historical Society’s Museum in Union Bridge. Brunswick would also offer, as I mentioned, small shops, antique stores, Chimeese & Italian Restaurants, a Diner, 3 pizza places, a suway, fast food restaurants, a coffee shop will be opening soon, and of coure there is the 3 - story Brunswick Railroad Museum (www.brrm.net)
To trainheartedguy: I live about 40 miles from Rochelle and have visited the park many times and can tell you without fear of being contradicted that there are many, many more than 35 to 40 trains per day here. The ones you see on the web cam are far from the only ones here. You can get 40 or so on BNSF’s C&I main line alone, and that line is the slower of the two! Remember, the count of over 100 is in a 24 hour period, and that includes the evening and nighttime hours as well. Jim in Aurora, IL
PS: If I still lived in Maryland (used to live in Severna Park) I would come to your park.
Mr. Trainhearted, you can trust Jim (Eolafan) and me (UPemployee) about Rochelle’s volume.
Now, if you have a railroad museum close by, a train-watching platform would be a natural, in my opinion. Make sure you can have picnic tables nearby so the people can bring their pizza and subways trackside!
Well that also would be a natural. Why have a park with no picnic tables nearby.
Of course, convincing them to build the park may be hard because I have been told that the city feels they need a theme that is Non-rail related, because they feel they have “Sucked the railroad theme dry”. What they have done except for having a few trains as city and school mascots, and using PRR Colors as the city’s official colors (of course in B&O Territory) is unknown, and they could do better.