Do We Have The Best Of Both Worlds On Here?

[TheArkansasRoadgeek]

So, do we have some road enthusiasts and rail fans on here??

Please, do tell!

Thanks!

[Max Rockatansky]

You've never looked in the Mass Transit Board?...plenty of rail topics there:

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?board=37.0

[TheArkansasRoadgeek]

I have been trying to venture into all boards, slowly, so sadly no...

[Max Rockatansky]

I have been trying to venture into all boards, slowly, so sadly no...

There you go then, usually both hobbies have some overlap to a degree.  I'll even touch on the subject now and then but I'm more interested in defunct railroads which tends end up in my Regional Board posts.  I want to say that it was the the "Max's Roads Pacific Southwest" thread where I actually have a write up on the Carson and Colorado Railroad.  I ever checked out part of the restored narrow gauge line at the Laws Depot, neat stuff.  Another good one was the G15/Metz Road thread since there is a really cool old rail tunnel still in use. 

I'd recommend following Sparker's posts also as it relates to west coast stuff.  He has a ton of information on rail related subjects out this way.  I want to say kkt has a lot of rail related info as well. 

[jp the roadgeek]

I would say we do in the fact that we have a sports discussion area on here as well.

[MNHighwayMan]

I never thought the Mass Transit board was really suited to general railroading though, which I think is more what TheArkansasRoadgeek meant.

[Max Rockatansky]

I never thought the Mass Transit board was really suited to general railroading though, which I think is more what TheArkansasRoadgeek meant.

Yeah, which is why I threw out the stuff I did.  I'm not sure what he was after in regards to rails, my interest tends run in the historic end of the spectrum especially narrow gauge.

[slorydn1]

I don't post much about rail, but I do spend alot of time watching train videos on Youtube. Norfolk Southern has a small yard here in New Bern, and we have a daily "street runner" that goes right down Hancock St and over the Trent River on a trestle heading down twoards Havelock. Its fun watching these big freight trains sharing the street with cars and trucks.

When I was little living in Jenison Michogan we lived about a mile away from what is now the CSX Grand Rapids Sub line between Grand Rapids and Chicago, it was nothing to see 150-200 car freight trains humming along at 50+ mph down the line. I could see the line from my house with a telescope, and it was a short bike ride through the woods to get down to the tracks. My dad used to take us to the Saugatuck grade where we would wait to see if the massive trains would stall out on the hill or if they would make it. I wish I still had the pictured my dad took but we can't find them anywhere.

[epzik8]

I love the Washington Metro, Amtrak, MARC, NYC Subway and Baltimore Light Rail, so I'd say I'm kind of a railfan.

[wxfree]

I have a less-than-Sheldon-Cooper-level of appreciation of trains.  Yesterday I intentionally turned on a local street so I could watch a slow train go by at the crossing instead of going to the nearby highway with an overpass.  I enjoy watching trains.  While photographing a nearby highway construction project, I got a few photos of a train passing by below the bridge.

Back when DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit) light rail first started, I went and rode the train with some friends, although electric light rail isn't exactly my favorite kind of train.

[inkyatari]

A couple years ago, I found out that there was an interurban rail line connecting JOliet, IL to Princeton, IL, about 70 miles west, and that it went right through Morris, IL.  Recently I've been curious as to where the actual tracks were ,and so I've been researching via google earth and bicycle rides.  I've found several abandoned bridges over creeks, and driveways where the tracks were.  Kinda fun finding stuff like this.

[cjk374]

I work for a railroad...a 62-mile shortline. The job was fun when I first started, but then became hell-on-Earth after we were bought by a conglomerate company. When everything went corporate & centralized a time zone away, my dream job became a nightmare. It is slowly draining me of my love of trains I used to have.

But when the UP sends a patched-numbered Rio Grande GP38 on their local that gives us our cars, I feel a lil excitement still left.

[TheArkansasRoadgeek]

My grandfather is a retired "car man" from UP he fought in the Vietnam War. He tells of his times working for UP from time to time, they are very interesting.

[sparker]

I'll post rail information if and when it's relevant to the discussion at hand -- and if I actually have accurate info to supply.  I was equally interested in railroads and roads as a kid; channeled a lot of the former into model railroading when I was young -- and rail photography as an adult. 

My dad actually worked as a freight-station manager for a short-line railroad (the Texas, Oklahoma, and Eastern) in his hometown of Broken Bow, OK during the Depression years.  The T.O. & E was the Oklahoma corporate branch of a lumber-hauling line owned by the Dierks Lumber Corporation (later bought by Weyerhaeuser); in Arkansas, the RR name (same line, 2 corporate identities for state tax purposes) was the DeQueen and Eastern.  The line ran between Hope, Arkansas and Valliant, Oklahoma, connecting with the Missouri Pacific at Hope and the SLSF ("Frisco") at Valliant, and the Kansas City Southern in DeQueen, near the middle of the line.  Between DeQueen and Hope were hardwood forests owned by Dierks; the purpose of the rail line was to collect logs from various branches extending into the forests and take them to mills located at Hope, DeQueen, Broken Bow, and Valliant and turn them into usable lumber; the finished products were then transported to the major railroads for distribution.  My late grandfather was chief lumber inspector at the Broken Bow mill (which is how my dad got his RR job).  My dad worked for the line until 1937, when war rumblings prompted him to come out to California and work for Lockheed as a construction manager as they were expanding their assembly facilities in Burbank and North Hollywood in preparation for what they (accurately) saw as the inevitable WWII.  But he always considered his railroad job as the first real long-term employment of his life & career.

[Roadgeekteen]

I am a rail fan, but there is not to much about the mbta on the mass transit board for me to post in.