shortliner Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 Must admit I always thought the hunting season would be much more fun, if Congress had granted "The Right To Arm Bears!" Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 If you've met one face to face ("only" a Black Bear) you'd remember they were pretty well armed for close combat already. A large cork would be handy for the humans.... The worst I experienced was smelling one (like a very rank stable that hasn't been cleaned for months), knowing it was close but having no idea where it actually was in the thick brush of the forest.....they can move fast too. Best, Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
yorkie_pudd Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 Surely the biggest difference between US / Uk railroading is 3,000 miles of water in which we either stop, or spend alot of time and money drying out trains or replacing them Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold PhilH Posted March 16, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted March 16, 2012 I reckon the biggest difference is this and this - can't see it happening over here...... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 Phil, Presumably this nondescript piece of normal mainline track somewhere in America passes muster? http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=2795986 Best, Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold PhilH Posted March 16, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted March 16, 2012 I think that'll do....Looks like Gordon ballasted it! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pH Posted March 16, 2012 Share Posted March 16, 2012 How about this - http://www.flyerguid...=270125&nseq=20, and the C&NW was a Class 1 when this photo was taken, not a short line! And see the 'Remarks' on the picture! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave1905 Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 You have to remember, rotten track like you guys keep posting handles a fraction of one percent of the tonnage in the US. The overwhelming majority is on tall rail on track with a speed of 50 mph or higher. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ozexpatriate Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 Y'all do recognize the irony in this discussion that the reason the US has "the right to bear arms" in the Constitution was a response to an occupation by a Brit army? Or, was that the 3rd amendment? But again, I digress. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ozexpatriate Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 How about this - http://www.flyerguid...=270125&nseq=20, and the C&NW was a Class 1 when this photo was taken, not a short line! And see the 'Remarks' on the picture! Unsurprisingly the C&NW was purchased by the UP only 7 years after this photograph was taken. Incidentally, Casper is the western end of the dotted line (meaning abandoned) on this CNW map. Here's a shot from less than 10 miles away at Shawnee, WY in what looks like better days. I imagine the Casper sub was hardly Class 1 material in the late 1980s - it was the very furthest extent of the CNW. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 You have to remember, rotten track like you guys keep posting handles a fraction of one percent of the tonnage in the US. The overwhelming majority is on tall rail on track with a speed of 50 mph or higher. I'm with Dave on this. Yes shortlines are charming and easily modelled but as Brits need persuading, I always urge a visit to one of the Transcon routes like the BNSF through the desert southwest. Sit and watch the endless trains passing through Flagstaff, for example and then drive out alongside on I40 and go to an overpass (say at the "Petrified Forest road loop) and see the arrow straight mainline disappearing in the distance both ways and count the mile long plus double-stacked intermodal trains visible pounding along on the perfectly laid tracks in some of the harshest conditions in the World. Get back on I40 and drive east towards Gallup, NM for hours and it is still the same. Then you realize what it is like to have the responsibility of track maintenance on a system that is truly Continentwide. Nothing like it anywhere else in the World for sheer size and volume of traffic. Best, Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 Bit of a feel for it in this clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02UN3wsuRG0 Certainly nothing like this in the UK! Best, Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Gwinnett Posted March 17, 2012 Author Share Posted March 17, 2012 We're in danger of getting too serious. My original post was just a humorous comment on the original picture. I certainly wasn't denigrating anyone's Constitution (Button Gwinnett signed the Declaration of Independence so I have to declare an interest anyway). If i had a US sized basement then i'd model the trans-con, or UP main or similar. If I win the lottery I'll be buying a barn (or more likely an aircon industrial unit) to build my empire! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold PhilH Posted March 17, 2012 RMweb Gold Share Posted March 17, 2012 We're in danger of getting too serious. My original post was just a humorous comment on the original picture. I certainly wasn't denigrating anyone's Constitution (Button Gwinnett signed the Declaration of Independence so I have to declare an interest anyway). If i had a US sized basement then i'd model the trans-con, or UP main or similar. If I win the lottery I'll be buying a barn (or more likely an aircon industrial unit) to build my empire! Precisely! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 Humor or humour works both ways... However the truism is that it is easy to forget the raison d'etre of US railroads amongst the plethora of switching models. I think an aircraft hanger would be more appropriate. I really enjoyed the comment about Gordon's ballasting by the way! No danger of getting too serious, here. Amen. Best, Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glorious NSE Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 Hope this makes sense, but to me one of the prime differences is how 'informally' railroads sit within the landscape compared to the UK http://railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=390877&nseq=110 http://railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=392137&nseq=13 http://railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=389665&nseq=235 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Gwinnett Posted March 17, 2012 Author Share Posted March 17, 2012 Good call Martyn. Gotta love the Longhorn livery on the GP50 in that last shot. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
alastairq Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 Hope this makes sense, but to me one of the prime differences is how 'informally' railroads sit within the landscape compared to the UK I guess the above gets narrowed down to one simple thing.......? Fences...? Or the lack of them? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Gwinnett Posted March 17, 2012 Author Share Posted March 17, 2012 Maybe. But I also get the impression that mid western roads at least tend to follow the terrain more closely than in the UK - fewer massive earthworks, retaining walls and so on. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium jamie92208 Posted March 17, 2012 RMweb Premium Share Posted March 17, 2012 If you've met one face to face ("only" a Black Bear) you'd remember they were pretty well armed for close combat already. A large cork would be handy for the humans.... The worst I experienced was smelling one (like a very rank stable that hasn't been cleaned for months), knowing it was close but having no idea where it actually was in the thick brush of the forest.....they can move fast too. Best, Pete. In 2005 when I was cycling along the old Denver South park and Pacific near Breconridge I saw the unmistakeable sillouhettes of a mother bear with cub about 20' away throught he trees. I couldn't decide what to do first and can't sit motionless with my feet on the pedals. Eventually just before I needed the cork mentioned above I realised that they were full size sheet steel profiles mounted on posts and painted black. Someone with a good sense of humour. Jamie Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
F-UnitMad Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 ... I also get the impression that mid western roads at least tend to follow the terrain more closely than in the UK - fewer massive earthworks, retaining walls and so on. Due in part to the power of the locomotives available by the time they were built??.... Many UK railway routes often were built very early on in the 19th Century when locos were very small and not very powerful - they had to have as level a line as possible to get anywhere, and many of those early routes just happen to still be in use... For me part of the attraction of US Railroads is precisely these sort of differences, and the "informal" look - and almost the very nature of Shortlines in particular - is part of that. We just quite simply have nothing like them here... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
CraigZ Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 The United States had its own "railroad mania" post 1860s. Lightly build/poorly grade railroads littered the country and every little town wanted a railroad. I've read that at its peak in the 1920s that no point in Iowa was more than 5 miles from a railway station. These roads were built on a shoestring budget and it never got any better financially for most of them. Little or no ballast used on them...some of us call them 'dirt railroads'. The ones that didn't get lifted or upgraded over the years stayed rolling hill and dale lines with minimal maintenance or less. And when those lines were abandoned, nature took them back remarkably fast with breaks in the tree line usually all that's there to show where they laid. We never had anything like a Beeching. It's been done piecemeal here as the industry's sorted itself out. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dave1905 Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 Due in part to the power of the locomotives available by the time they were built??.... Many UK railway routes often were built very early on in the 19th Century when locos were very small and not very powerful - they had to have as level a line as possible to get anywhere, and many of those early routes just happen to still be in use.. I think its more a case of more challenging terrain and more space. We had the space to wander along the most level route, so spending a couple thousand more for an extra mile of track was less expense than tens of thousands to build huge earthworks. You will find in many cases the railroad built the low cost route first and then after things were established came back with an alternate grade lesser grade. I-80 between Cheyenne and Salt Lake City is a fascinating study in different alignments where "double track' can sometime be separated by hundreds of feet horizontally and vertically. The UP west from Omaha wandered along Papio Creek and then Harriman built the Lane cutoff that's used today, involving huge earthworks and ultimately numerous bridges. The SP went over two huge mountains to reach Promontory Summit, but then built the causeway across the Great Salt Lake to lower the trip vertically by a thousand feet and shortening it by miles. For me part of the attraction of US Railroads is precisely these sort of differences, and the "informal" look - and almost the very nature of Shortlines in particular - is part of that. We just quite simply have nothing like them here... I only have seen pictures of UK trains, have never seen them in person. I agree with the "informality", but its more of an industrial feel too. A UK train seems more like a car and a US train seems more like a truck. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
trisonic Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 Here's one I took earlier, I love this stuff: â“’ 2011 Spooky Muse Inc. Click to enlarge. Does it look as "bad" as this in real life? No. It looks a little wavy but shooting through a 600mm equiv., lens really brings it out due to visual compression. The high points are where the rail joiners are.....this is pretty good for a shortline. This bucolic line is within 50 miles of New York City in New Jersey. Black River & Western RR originally the line was built in 1854. Best, Pete. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glorious NSE Posted March 17, 2012 Share Posted March 17, 2012 Alistair, fencing is probably the most obvious, but more subtly in urban/suburban environments where the railroad feels part of the city, not blasted through it on viaducts or tunnelled under it - in many places in the midwest and beyond the railroad was often there first, that was impossible in Europe. The railway tends to be generally at ground level and the rest of the community has to just deal with it. Sure in lots of cities as things have got hectic then grade separation projects have been done, but that's been an reaction, not the fundamental basis for the rails being there....the railway is inherent in the community, not something tacked on (and then possibly post beeching ripped away) But I agree with Jon's observation on the terrain following - whilst I'd agree that some is down to cheap construction even modern heavily engineered US railroads do this far more than UK ones did - only where they have built a new alignment in the last few decades or where keeping at/under consistent grade is vital do you get the consistent levelling and vertical alignments you see in the UK - look at the start of the Transcon vid Pete posted earlier in the thread - No real grading, no 'engineering' - the only differential from the contours of the land is 130-odd years of accumulated dropped ballast... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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