The “Boneyard” TV show the other night got me to thinking…there is all this rail being scrapped, and we read about the line abandonments all the time, overall rail mileage is decreasing…so I have a question for those who may know…
Are there any new rail lines being built, especially by short lines? (besides perhaps real small industrial spurs). Is there any track being laid out there that’s blazing a direction in which rail hasn’t been before? Or are all short line railroads, as i suspect, essentially heirs to previous short lines, or branch lines sold off by class ones because they’re marginal to productivity or class one profitability?
I know that the Wyoming coal fields have sparked some ideas for new lines, but besides that are we just in “rationalization”, “rightsizing” and “attrition” mode as far as rail lines go?
In most cases, new rail lines built these days are short spurs or branchlines to serve new customers. Now that DM&E has recieved the funding they need, they will star laying their own route to the powder river basin. I don’t recall the exact distance, but isn’t it about 100 miles?
Here in Austin, TX there is a shortline oufit called the Austin Area Terminal Railroad. They are currently installing parallel track to accomodate the soon to be running light rail passenger service. The freight tracks cross the UP at grade; the new line actually climbs to go over the UP mainline. The engineers, ahem, somehow miscalculated the clearance of the overhead line and caused the MOW crews to lower the interchange track by as much as 18" to provide proper clearance. [#oops]
If the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage facility ever goes on-line, one by-product will be a 161-mile rail line through the approximate heart of nowhere (south-central Nevada,) avoiding anything that even resembles a populated area.
OTOH, the whole project is a political football - and we’re nowhere near the two-minute warning (for the first half of the wrangling!!!)
Out here is Wausau They have a line going out to Weston. The WC kept the track there for future expansion if an industerial park ever shows up. So those track might get relaid.
Down here in Hopkinsville, KY, the US Army Ft. Campbell Railroad finished laying track on a new route in 2003 that by-passes town and heads straight for a Wye that they use to ship out army supplies and equipment. The new route couldn’t be more that 3 or 4 miles long, but it cost a fortune (like $13 million I’ve heard). The old route used to go straight into town, and it wasn’t but 2 or 3 blocks away from my house. I was really “displeased” when they ripped up that track…