Hi all - my first time trying to post to this new forum system, so here goes…
I am modelling 1920’s/30s small railroad in Maine, so all steam. I’d like to know what would have been done with regard to trackside grasses, bushes etc. I assume some stuff would be cleared to minimise fire hazard, but if so, to what sort of distance would be typical?
I know in Kansas where I model roughly each town had a section crew and one of their jobs was to clear brush and sometimes mow when there was time to the property line (generally 50 feet each side of the track). They would burn the right of way also which achieved both tasks. I would find period images of what the ROW looked like and keep in mind time of year would also determine vegetation growth. Are you modeling prior to or after the great depression as less maintenance occurred during the depression. If you can find a MOW book from the railroad you model to see if there were fences and what type used on the property line. The railroads did employ ditcher and other equipment to maintain drainage, though manual labor with section crews was common and labor was relatively cheap at that time.
Hi Bob. Welcome back to the forum. Yes, for 20s/30s era, you’d have a very clear, neat right-of-way. As Nate mentioned, labor was cheap, so a lot of that was done by hand by the section crews, and summer maintenance programs often would employ the use of weed sprayers and weed burners as well to keep trackside growth at bay. Cinders were often spread along both sizes of the ballasted main line to keep weeds down during the steam era too. Fire is bad anywhere on the railroad if it isn’t in the locomotive’s firebox. As Nate said, prototype period photos are your best guide. Best wishes!
Thanks Nate and David for your input. My railroad is freelance but inspired by the autumn scenery of New England and the Maine coastline. Although set vaguely 20s/30s I do allow myself some historical tolerance (There is a thriving brewery in my industrial area, for example, unmolested by the temperance movement of the time!). I try to keep things looking believable, even in the absence of an actual prototype, hence my question.
It does seem that, in some places, my section crtews have been less active than they should have been, but for the remaining scenic areas I have to tackle, I’ll bear in mind their terms of employment!
Thanks again, and compliments of the season to you all from me here in UK.
Bob.
The fact that the wide clearances aren’t done anymore is one reason rail traffic is affected so much by things like hurricanes and other major storms. It used to be trees were kept far enough back that if they fell, they wouldn’t foul the track. Nowadays, I’ve been on trains where the ends of the branches brush the train as it goes by!
Though perhaps nowadays there isn’t so much risk of fire as there was in the steam days? I have recently found some pictures of steam trains travelling past rather close vegetation, but as they were all from ‘Scenic’ and ‘Heritage’ lines, I think it was probably more from the photogenic viewpoint than any other reason. And some were, indeed, very pretty.
I’ll continue to just have ‘reasonable clearance’ - it is largely a shelf layout, so I don’t have the depth of scene to have track and much scenery, and I do want lots of fall colours in my scenes!