Iinterest in Trains: toys, real life?

[19&41]

The PRR S-1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-0-Ex6LH2g

[TC Chris]

The railroad bed that was once the route into Hart is now the Hart, Montague/Whitehall bike trail. It's one of my favorite things to do during good weather, to ride that trail and see where the train traveled.

When the D&M tracks were abandoned, the state proposed a hiking & biking trail from the Bay City State Park. The state did buy a long stretch from the State Park past their nearby large marsh preserve access, but in the area where the ROW was closer to houses, the adjacent owners put up a howl. "Thieves will ride in and rob us blind! Bad characters will hang around! Property values!" I pointed out that there is a public road between the proposed trail and the houses, and that if a thief was after your TV or microwaves, they'd likely drive up instead of hoisting it onto a bicycle. As to bad characters, you mostly see smiling families and other happy folks on trails. And property values? The trail along Lake Champlain in Burlington, VT was opposed for the same reason. But when it was built, it enhanced property values and became an advertising plus for real estate salespeople. Back to Bay City, once the disputed portion had been sold off, the people who had opposed it discovered how cool it was to have a trail, and tried to raise money to extend it. Too late....

Me, I liked having a railroad behind the house, but a public trail would have been the next-best option.

Chris Campbell

[TC Chris]

I'll post this one here, in the non-electric railway thread. Here's a nice holiday story by the daughter of D.H Day, a lumberman from Glen Haven over on Lake Michigan due west of where I am. She tells of taking trains into Traverse City at Christmas. It was a big deal. Now I hop into my truck and drive the 30 miles with nary a thought. D.H. Day's big house still stands, with his modern scientific barn, just outside the national park. Here's the link.

https://mynorth.com/2016/12/an-early-19 ... erse-city/?

Chris Campbell

[Firedome]

I'm looking out the window right now (we're at camp in Vermont) at the Lake Champlain Island Rail Trail aka Colchester Rail Trail, built on the causeway tracks of the old Rutland Railroad that closed in 1961 and bought by the State of VT in 1963. It's been called "The Most Unique Bike Ride in America". You can Google You tubes of it. When I was a kid the trains were still running on it, built on old granite and marble tailings from the quarries in Barre and tracks laid on top. Now it's wonderful to bike or walk on because it's only about 40 ft wide and the Lake is on both sides, so you're in the middle of the lake!, the Adirondaks in the distance to the West and Green Mtns. to the East... spectacular!
It's 14 mi long, and at the N end there's a missing bridge about 200 ft long, so a pontoon boat ferry takes you across the gap so you can resume your trek on S. Hero Island (named for Ethan Allen, who died walking across the ice in winter to the mainland in Colchester) and bike all the way up to Montreal if you choose!

[19&41]

We have a little road bed trail down here, too.

https://www.bing.com/search?q=silver+co ... ghc=1&lq=0

[TC Chris]

Here in TC we have a rail trail too.

https://traversetrails.org/trails/leelanau-trail/

It starts about a mile from my house and if I need after-work exercise or skip a day of work, I'll ride north for 15 miles to Suttons Bay, a pretty tourist town. Rail trails are great because the grades are all gradual (but they can be long).

The roadbed originally served a carferry (rail cars) from Northport across lake Michigan to Manistique, an iron ore shipping point. The entrepreneur ordered up a nice steel carferry like the ones that cross Lake Michigan east-to-west to avoid Chicago, farther south. But he had failed to consider the ice conditions in the narrower, shallower Lake farther north. The Lake Michigan carferries were built as icebreakers and ran all year round. But the one at Northport faced bigger ice problems and was not economically successful. The ferry was sold to one of the railroads for operation farther down the lake. It sank with all hands lost in 1929. Here's a link:

https://www.michiganrailroads.com/car-f ... manistique

The roadbed's last rail use was for a tourist train that failed. If they tried it now, it would probably be a success.

The stories of lake crossings in the winter and in gales are fascinating. Ferries would get stuck and they would have to wait for other ferries to break their way through the ice pack and free them. Or in big storms, the rail cars would start breaking loose. Lets just say that you can't have a bunch of loaded railcars bouncing around loose down below. The crew would have to head down there and try to restrain them. Not a job for the faint-hearted.... That ferry that sank in Lake Michigan was 338 feet long, a pretty big boat. Everybody has heard of the Edmund Fitzgerald. She was 739 feet. A big boat. The Great Lakes sank them both.

Chris Campbell

[Firedome]

Great Lakes Brewing makes Edmund Fitzgerald Porter, my favorite brew! The label shows that poor ill-fated ore-ship in her last moments in the storm. And surely everyone has heard Gordon Lightfoot's ballad of that event, one of my favorite singers '70s up to now, and still going strong I think.

[Conelrad]

I finally got to read this, and I do have rail history in my family. My dad worked Sufferin' Pacific from 1939 to his death in 1980, logging 42 years with them.

At first he managed the freight and baggage operations, and when passenger service was curtailed in the early 70's he went to driving the crew bus.

His territory for changing out deadhead crews went West to the Colton, Ca. yards from Yuma, East to Tucson. About 700mi of rail to cover.

One day he came home very late, and we were worried. He told us what happened, starting out with a consist that died on the log just outside of Tucson in Rillito. The train was filling up with cement, and being pulled by a switcher until full. In the meantime a triple engine consist was idling while waiting to take the train away, and all the crew was on the ground doing something other than paying attention. The engines got to moving slowly before someone finally noticed, prompting one crewman to try and board it but couldn't hang on.

So now there are three unmanned engines rolling onto the main line into Tucson.

Dispatch said they would get an emergency crew out to derail it when a yard bull said to my dad, "Comon' Gil, let's go stop that train". He asked "just how are we going to do that?" The fat old cop said "let's roll up beside it and I'll blow an air hose off with my 12ga."

Pop was ready for a bit of fun, so off they went. No road along the route, so the Suburban he was driving was getting a good beating getting up next to the train. When they got even with it, pop said "I looked over and it was just ass crack with him hanging out the window, blasting away."

Sure enough, some buckshot got thru the hose and the brakes set. Emergency overcome!

When time came to get back to the cement plant, dad said the truck wouldn't move as both front wheels had broken the A-arms.

It took awhile for a ride back finally came along. Never a dull moment with the SP!

Dennis