Having just invested in a new tent, I was wondering if there are any great places to camp and railfan. The camp sites do not have to be right by the tracks but perhaps a short distance away.
Thanks.
Deshler’s railroad park (Ohio) has plenty of space to set up camp, plus power (donations cheerfully accepted). I must warn you that a train of empty hoppers hitting the diamond at 2 AM is not really conducive to sleep…
But there is plenty of traffic!
or the squealling flanges of auto racks and grain cars around the wyes[:)] plus the B&O cpls look good at night.There is a campground in Van Bruen ohio just off of I-75 east on rt 613. It is near the toledo branch of csx and could be a jumping point for a trip to Marion,Fostoria or Deshler.
stay safe
joe
Well, top off your gas tank and travel out to the Mojave Narrows Regional Park in Victorville CA. Right next to the busy BNSF Cajon sub. If you’re into bluegrass music, the Huck Finn Festival in June uses this park.
I haven’t been camping in 30 years, but back around 1980 we used my in-laws’ pickup-truck-bed campoer for a trip east. The best campsite I remember from that trip was in the area of Catlettsburg, Kentucky, adjacent to arguably the busiest stretch of the then C&O main line. We had to make a dash from our campsite to the boundary that was trackside, but the trains were easy to see and hear.
The Jellystone Park campground in Portage, Indiana, backs up against the CSX’s former B&O main line. I don’t know whether any trackside sites are open to transient campers, but we spent many hours with friends who summered there during the early and middle 1990s (we saw some of the tracklaying action when they restored the second track there, pre-Conrail-breakup).
Rochelle doesn’t have any hookups, but it wouldn’t be inconceivable to park one’s camper overnight at the Railroad Park there.
A couple - five years ago Bruce Kelly had an article in Trains about camping with his kids in a National Forest in western Idaho, right next to a busy main line - Montana Rail Link, I believe.
Unfortunately, when I used to do that kind of thing I was with a group that would carry our tents and camp in places that were not really intended for that - such as the ledge above Horse Shoe Curve, and vacant fields there and near other lines - and we were asked to move to a more formal campground only once, somewhere up in the Catskills. Or, I was with my wife and daughter, who would not be happy within hearing distance of a busy main line. In general, we found that the ‘rustic’, ‘unimproved’, ‘walk-in’, ‘tent-only’ campgrounds were a lot quieter and more tranquil anyway.
That said, there’s a few state and public campgrounds up and down the Susquehanna River in central PA that are not far from busy rail lines. The local power company - PPL - has 2, one on each side - one is Pequea Creek, and the other is Otter Creek - see http://www.pplweb.com/holtwood/things+to+do/camping.htm
More generally, spend a lot of time with your computer and the mapping applications to find campgrounds that meet your criteria. Check out all of a state’s parks and forest areas, as well as those of the National Park Service, US Forest Service, US Bureau of Land Reclamation, US Army Corps of Engineers - each has campgrounds of various kinds, as well as those listed in the AAA Campground Guides and travel directories such as the ‘Good Sam’ one, etc.
Also, in some parts of the
I have some great memories of Jellystone Park from the 80’s as a child and the constant clatter of CSX trains going by with Chessie, Seaboard, B&O, C&O, SCL and ACL power. Here is a pic I took from Lake Minnehaha beach that shows how close the mainline was to the campground area:
There’s always that one campground in Marias Pass on the west slope…across the valley from all those snowsheds. Camped there in 1996, and seeing was I was 6 at the time, I hardly remember a thing.
Canyon Hot Springs near Revelstoke is a good one, nobody who’s camped there ever wants to go back because it sounds like heavy trains lumbering upgrade are going right through your tent.
Let’s not forget the only one I actually remember…Whitefish Lake State Park campground. Just outside of Whitefish, MT, and right by the BNSF mainline.
Give these a click for photos of the last place from when I camped there; the grade crossing is on the campground road.
Paul, you know you’re getting older when what seems like just five years ago turns out to have been ten. My MRL story was in the March 2000 issue. My two kids, who are shown in that story, are now a senior and sophomore in high school. (Sean now stands about 6’-2"!) And it’s in western Montana, not Idaho. But my home in north Idaho is just 45 minutes from Montana, so it all pretty much looks the same. I’ve been having plenty of “it seems like just last week or two months ago” moments lately, about things that took place a year or more ago, so I can relate.
Anyway, there are indeed plenty of good public campsites close to the train action here in the West. MRL from St. Regis to Paradise as already mentioned, plus a few more up on the Idaho end of MRL at places like Hope and Trestle Creek. Camping also available in the valley near Blacktail on Marias Pass and elsewhere on that portion of BNSF’s Hi Line.
Down in eastern Washington, if you like high desert and basalt canyons, there’s Palouse Falls State Park and Lyons Ferry State Park. Both have tent sites close to UP’s Ayer Sub between Spokane, WA, and Hinkle, OR. About a dozen or more trains a day. At Palouse Falls, the track is in a deep cut right next to the campsites, and you can explore much of the canyon on foot to some great photo locations without trespassing on RR property. At Lyons Ferry, many of the campsites have an excellent view of Joso Bridge, which soars high above the Snake River and canyon floor. The UP branch leading to Riparia and Lewiston, used about four times a week by Great Northwest Railroad’s Ayer Turn, is right across the river.
Additional campsites further west along the Snake and Columbia rivers, some quite close to BNSF and/or UP.
Back in my old stomping grounds of youth, most of Cajon Pass was open to overnight camping except on railroad access roads or rights of way. I hear some of the areas below Cajon station are not a good place to be at night anymore. Oh yeah, plenty of open camping out in the d
If you ever make a trip to Colorado and are interested in Narrow Gauge, here ya go.
In Durango, try American RV Park on the north side of town. The park is split by the Durango, and Silverton Railroad so you are treated to at least two train sightings a day…AM and PM. Plus if you are in town during RailFest, you are might also see a Galloping Goose or the 4-4-0 Eureka & Palisades along with extra excursion runs. Near by in Chama, NM I would recommend the Rio Chama RV park toward the north side of town. The Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad runs right by the park on its way each day. As a plus, you are free to roam the yard in Chama looking at and photographing the narrow gauge equipment such as Gramps oil cars and a coaling tower. Plus you are lulled to sleep each night by the yard engine building the consist for the next days run.
Dean May
I believe it is currently out of service, but the D&S used to rent a camp car (Railcamp). When we rented it years ago, they took it by special train to Cascade Wye (camp car, engine 476 and a caboose) on Monday and picked us up on Friday.
The car was fitted out with the conveniences of a modern RV including shower, kitchen, bunks, etc. That was a great week of railfanning.
Glen Brewer
Bruce - Thanks for the detailed reference to that issue. [Y] I did note and enjoy the ‘family’ aspects of that article, too, such as the photo of your kids. I take some solace in the knowledge that the ‘getting older’ thing isn’t necessarily a failing memory, but that instead it’s just getting better - because now it seems I can remember things from 10 years ago, not just 5 or so ! [swg] Actually, considering what I was involved with from 2002 to 2008 - designing and building a new house, which we now refer to as our “upscale camping in the woods” - it’s been kind of like a Rip Van Winkle or ‘time travel’ phenonema - most of life just got put on hold for a few years. So it really doesn’t seem that long ago . . .
Thanks for your list of other places, too. Until I’ve been to and traveled around a place for a while, it’s hard for my to ‘internalize’ the railroad, geography, and political boundary lines, and relate them well to each other - such is the case with western Montana and NW Idaho. Hopefully we’ll be able to fill in that void sometime in the next few years . . .
- Paul North.