All that he said and more. Only 2 or 3 decades ago I kept a small trimaran in the San Francisco Bay. A person can sail up to the Jack London public dock 2 blocks from the tracks. Boats and trains together - the joy!
John
Augusta, Georgia.
Lansing is about 27 miles north of Marquette or about 10 miles south of New Albin. You should get up there sometime.
This topic was covered in a recent Trains magazine article, within the past two years or so.
One of the top street running spots listed in a sidebar box in the article was on the Rock Island Metra line, through what the article called “Beverly, Illinois”.
This puzzled me at that time but I never contested it, so I’ll ask now. Exactly where does the Rock Island Metra line run on a street on its way to Joliet Central Station?.
Metra’s Rock Island District does some street running in Ridge Park near the 99th Street Station- it runs down Wood Street for a segment- then it also runs bracketed closely between some city streets noth and south of there. I’m not sure where they got “Beverly” from- Beverly Hills, IL is to the north up past 100th street, but the real Beverly, IL is further south in the west central part of Illinois… sounds like a typo to me.
Now that I think of it, it did say “Beverly Hills, Ill.” But I’d hardly call that area a great location for shooting street running.
It’s not a hot spot by any measure, but it was passed over in the Trains survey of road running:
Anaheim, CA on Santa Ana Street, from the West Anaheim “Y”. The “Y” (once SP, now UP) is just south of where Broadway crosses Interstate 5. There is a nice little park next to the Y mini-yard. One branch goes over I-5 and merges with Santa Ana Street. The rails run a mile or so east down the center of Santa Ana. Then they turn south on Olive Street and go another mile. There the rails continue, but the street is blocked off, even though the pavement continues.
Most of the distance is in residential areas. Some apartments but mostly single family homes. After passing Anaheim Police HQ at Harbor the zoning changes to mixed commercial and residential. When the circus is at the Honda Center, this is the route it takes to get to a small yard just north of Katella.
Traffic is very light. I have lived in Anaheim since 1980 and I have seen trains moving on these rails exactly twice.
Jack
The street running that Ted and Trainfan are referring to in Tampa, Florida is CSX’s Port Tampa Local. It originates at the giant yard about 4 miles east of Downtown. Usually runs through at the 5:00p.m hour, passes by Tampa Union Station on it’s westward trip to Port Tampa. Lengths between 15-25 cars. Locomotive usually a single GP38-2 or GP40-2. When double-headed one unit is usually a control slug. Loads are mostly in covered and centerflow hoppers, though boxcars and tanks are scattered in the mix.
The locomotive(s) usually drift eastward, back through Downtown on the way to the big Uceta Yard area between 10:00-11:00p.m.
Other than the Amtrak Silver Star, there’s just not that much rail action anymore near the Downtown area (Well, there is the trolley). The east side of town is the place to catch more activity. For me, it’s a sad reminder that the 1970s and Seaboard Coast Line are long gone.
You can still catch a short stretch of street running on two tracks in Warsaw, IN. The former Pennsy has asphalt on both sides of the ballast line, one for each direction of travel for autos. The former NYC also has a short stretch of street running. NS runs about a dozen trains on the ex NYC and one on the ex Pennsy. The shortline leasing the Pennsy also runs two trains each way.