Click the link for Google Street View.
Norfolk Southern, Landrum, S.C. Looks like rubber across the tracks connected to some sort of antenna or GPS receiver. Some type of sensor or warning device? Track improvements were made a year before this image was acquired (notice the old ties on the side), and this is not far from where the tracks become “out of service” at a mound of dirt and trees. Or maybe it has something to do with signals? Just curious, never seen one of those before.
Derailed Equipment Detector?
NorthWest,
Perhaps you meant “dragging equipment detector”? That would be my guess.
Yes, Erik, I met Dragging Equipment Detector, somehow that slipped past…
Thanks,
NW
Definately a Dragging Equipment Detector, which raises another question. With the OP stating that this is installed not too far from the end of active track on this line, and the rails at the detector site appear to be rusted…what real purpose is it serving? Is it something leftover from when the entire subdivision was active?
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If I’m not mistaken, is this is right before the Saluda Grade?
I should have guessed that, thanks for the replies.
Yes, this is before Saluda. I didn’t want to mention it so that it’s “not another Saluda thread”. The line is still active on this section, but sees no service. The lumber yard with the siding on the other side of this crossing stopped hauling woodchips by rail a few years ago. The detector is likely just left over. Most of the equipment on the inactive section is still in place.
According to the Street View date, those ties have been sitting there for over a year. The work was done in early 2012.
There were rumors swirling about Saluda a year ago when the work was done, with the geometry train on both sides of the line, the NS Exhibit Car on display in Landrum, and the South Carolina Inland Port being built, but nothing has come to fruition.
Perhaps NS is simply amusing us (the panting public) by doing all this work, leading us to speculate that the landslide area will be filled in, signal protection reinstated–and through service Biltmore-Hayne will be reinstated?[:)]
The fact they haven’t moved to abandon it would lead one to believe that there is still a glimmer of hope in resurrection of service.
It costs more to remove it than to just leave it alone. If it resides in out of service track, you don’t even have to inspect the thing.
First time I’ve ever heard a DED (paddles and all) associated with a GPS receiver. What would the old trip-wire draggers or high/wide telltales, of which a few still exist on Class 1’s out here, be called?
If you “drive” the street with Google streetview you will notice a black Honda that is following the camera car to the north, but it is absent for the two photos crossing the tracks. (fodder for the conspiracy theories)
It is nice that they installed that pedestrian crossing sign on the south side of the tracks. Maybe they have it there for the person in the street view apparently using the track as a running trail.
Where is the GPS antenna you mentioned? Are you referring to the pipe near the tracks with the wire running to it? That appears to be just a conduit to go into the equipment cabinet.
I would not see any need for GPS as this is a stationary unit. If there was an antenna I would expect it to be sized for 160-161 MHz or potentially some point to point microwave.
It is also interesting to not that it looks like there are two commercial power feeds. One to the crossing signals and one less maintained one to the DED cabinet.
Thanks for the link
The pipe/conduit is a regular old signal pedestal. Why does a 30 year old piece of signal technology need GPS attached to it?
I’ve seen NS abandon little one-two mile sections of track at the end of an industrial line (that has been buried in trees for years). Saluda, granted only from what I’ve seen on various message boards, is not only still there, but has been getting regular maintenance. (note the fresher paint on the signal bungalows and crossing signal masts) And abandoning this line would eliminate a lot of grade crossings, as well.
Don’t know about the GPS, there is a lot of those things out there.
I seriously doubt it’s GPS, it just reminded me of a Trimble GPS antenna. I thought it may have been a device put in place to detect any type of rail movement after the work was completed (I don’t know, why I asked).
Mainly I wonder why the detector is still in place when it gets no use. Perhaps it’s not worth the cost to move it elsewhere? The same reason everything is mostly still in place on the inactive section.