I was nosing around the neighbourhood on google maps, and found three concentric ovals of track in at the sulphur facility in North Vancouver
I guess the curve scales down to about five foot radius in HO scale.
Track ovals are not rare in industrial settings. A steel plant not far from here has a track oval. I’ve also seen them on maps for military supply bases. There was also a time when SP’s San Ramon Branch was a part of a large oval route to/from San Francisco or Oakland. Surely, that wasn’t the only one.
Mark
Actually, before track abandonments the Toledo Terminal Railroad was an oval around and through the City of Toledo and connected all the railroads and in many cases was the emergency Maumee River crossing with two bridges across the Maumee River.
Rick
Hi Rick: That’s right. The “oval” extended for over 32 miles in length. This summer all of the northwestern part of the loop was taken up, leaving only the ballast. Maybe a future rails to trails path. The bridge over I-475 will come down in a few weeks for highway widening. The upper river bridge over the Maumee is still in place without rails awaiting some future use. The bridge is over 100 feet above the river and over 2,000 feet long. That would make for a spooky bike trail ride! There are still a few sections of track left, but all are now owned by other lines. There is a section right next to Laskey Road left, but it is now a spur serving The GM Powertrain plant, a General Foods plant, an 84 Lumber yard, and a team track next to Laskey near the old DT&I depot. The Toledo Terminal would make a great industrial switching shelf layout. The hard part would be figuring out which LDEs to model. There were over 15 junctions on the TTRR with interlocking towers and interchange yards at each one.
RE: TTRR
Is Alexis tower still there? As a kid my father and I would go up there and I would get to route trains through the interlocking. Of course I had lots of help from the operator and my dad who was a freight conductor on the C&O out of Walbridge yard. Also I have been across the upper river bridge in a caboose with pops. Dad had an oversized load to take that way and I got to go with him. He made the engineer stop and inch forward through the bridge, which only cleared by inches of the brodge. Let me tell you it was scarey in a caboose, I can’t imagine going across it on a bicycle. The center swing span felt as if it was trying to swing as we passed over it. I don’t know if it was welded into place but it sure seemed rickity. I realize it was a swing bridge that never had the swing equipment installed, but it did have at least the ring gear IIRC. The belt around Toledo would be a very mishapen oval as well as large.
Paul
Dayton and Mad River RR.
A friend of mine who was a structural engineer inspected the upper river bridge in the 70’s and said the steel was still good, but that the concrete was deteriating badly and would be the reason for closing the bridge rather than the steel.
I lived in Toledo just north of the upper river bridge and the TT was in my backyard, previously I lived next to the NKP/WAB joint trackage just north of Gould tower, so I saw a lot of traffic up close and personal.
Rick
Hi Peter
Great to see someone else close to home on here. I grew up in North Van. And spent years working in West Van.
Check out the other ovals further east at the coal terminal and abandon lumber dock near the Iron Workers Memorial Bridge. Roberts bank is also quite impressive. Using the measuring tool on Google Earth tells us all we need a bigger house if we want to model these things.[:)]
Also if you poke around the water front on Google Earth enough, you can see numerous Rail barges of various shapes and sizes.
Brent
Hi Paul: Sadly, Alexis tower was torn down in 1999, another victim of CTC I guess. As for the upper bridge, I have yet to learn if someone actually thought a swing bridge would be required there. The river has never been navigable there by lake ships and the height would have precluded a span that would require opening. My suspicions are that the railroad purchased an old bridge and used it there to save money.
Hi Rick: I have been documenting the NKP in Toledo since early spring this year. I am working on the area from the warehouse district in downtown Toledo out to the Lucas county line. This all disappeared in the early '60s and there is little written about the railroad in this area.
I am also documenting the Manufacturers Railway that ran along the west bank of the Maumee in downtown Toledo. That line also disappeared in the early '60s and has even less documentation on it. Do you know anyone in the area that might have information on these two railroads? Thanks.
The Maumee was navigable to large sailing ships all the way to the the Maumee-Perrysburg bridge, so the bridge would have had to open based on the possible traffic especially with the sailing ship masts when that bridge was built.
Rick
Rick: Thanks for clarifying the river traffic situation. I have not seen any reference to shipping that far upriver after the turn of the century. That certainly explains why the turning base was built.
Hi Brent,
Indeed I’m familiar with the coal/container loops. What I particularly liked about this one is that it’s three concentric ovals – like you would set up with Lionel track on the floor, long long ago.
I highly recommend a trip through Vancouver Harbour to get a different view of the rail facilities. I’m lucky enough to crew on a sailboat and have been through three times this summer.
BTW in the northeast corner of the googlemap image it looks like there’s an abandoned rail barge facility.
cheers
/peter
Here is another “loop” O I have seen with my own two eyes. It was two rails spaced 4’8 1/2" and used a standard gauge 89’ TrailerTrain flat car. They would have had to truck the flat there as the nearest tracks are the Erie and the Big Four mainline, which had tracks going into Wright-Patt then. I was stationed there in the US Air Force in Dayton Ohio in the 70s and was assigned to the 4950th Test Wing.
We had a facility called the Trebin (spelling?) road site near Fairborn Ohio. It was a radio transceiver station at that location. They were just the standard military UHF/VHF kind of radios. No this has nothing to do with project Blue Book, or Hanger 5 or whatever. It was a circle of standard gauge track with a diameter of about 89’. The flat car had the trucks turned sideways and the car could face any azimuth. I do not know how they turned it as there was no drive mechanisim.There were several large electrical junction boxes installed but no axial or rotary joints. I am assuming they turned it infrequentlly and unpluged it when turning, then reconnected. They were just closing the facility when I was there in about 74 or so, but it did exist. It wasn’t a secret facility or anything, just newer technology renderd it obsolete. It is probably a housing tract or something now, as that area is very built up.
OOPS, I forgot to put my name on the above post. I don’t immediatly see how to edit so…
Paul
Dayton and Mad River RR