Abandoned Railroad Lines

Any one interested in abandoned lines? Well, I do know that I am


Such as:
Homestake Pass
Elk Park Pass
NP Wallace, Idaho Branch (or whatever it's named)
and... I can't think of anymore! :'(

I'm mostly interested in the Homestake Pass line which ran from Logan to Butte, Montana. Today, it no longer goes to Butte but it goes a few miles to a gravel pit north of Whitehall, MT on the pass and the tracks end at Spire Rock. There's quite a few trestles and a couple tunnels on the line as well.

You can tell about abandoned lines in this thread

-enginewhistle:wave:

Not so much abandoned, more unfinished, still a really interesting line.. This ones near Wollongong in NSW.

Eewwwwee. That looks ugly. Would put all my life savings to convert it into an excursion line.

I have at least two abandoned lines in my area. I might take some pictures.

We have quite a few abandoned lines in my area. Sadly many of them happened due to "cost cuts" by the local transit authority, and now they've become bike trails instead.

Former Eastern Railroad above Newbury.
The swing drawbridge stuck open and the MBTA didn't want to spend the $8million to work on it. Now the line is ripped up from the train station to Seabrook New Hampshire.

There's talk of reopening the line for commuter service to Portsmouth someday.

Manchester, NH to Rockingham Jct.
Manchester to Lawrence, or actually Methuen.

The former M&L was one of the earliest railroads in the region and connected the mill cities of the same name. It was ripped up in pieces, and finally about 10 years ago, Guilford (Pan Am Railways) finished off the final section from the Lawrence-Methuen line to Salem, NH. Parts of this line are now a trail, but in the more urban areas, it's too dangerous to do that.

Swampscott to Marblehead.
This was done during a cost cutting move, and is now a bike trail never to see trains again even though the area is extremely congested. There are too many yuppies and NIMBYs around this area to fight the rebuild.

Wakefield to Topsfield.
This was once the B&M Newburyport branch that ran via Georgtown and Byfield. The top-most portion came up in the late 1940s, and the more recent Wakefield to Topsfield, later Danvers came up during the Guilford era after there was a small washout and a tree stuck through an engine gas tank.

The line is to become a boring bike trail.

Bradford to Georgetown

This is part of the upper end of the Wakefield to Newburyport branch. There's a wye in Georgetown where these two lines meet. There was a major washout during a hurricane during the 1940s and the line was abandoned. The ROW today is a road for the power company. There are still some small bridges in place, and there are some mile markers along trackbed in places. There are also signs of crossings as well on the less used roads. Imagine this is 60 or more years after the line has been torn up!

North Andover to Danvers
This was ripped closed in the 1920s and sold for scrap in the 1940s. Two small portions remained in operation until, ahem Guilford came along. The Peabody to Danvers portions served a small seaport and chemical plant in Danvers, and the western North Andover end served some warehouses and a manufacturer.

Peabody and Lowell
Came up in the 1940s along with a lot of other lines. There's a small portion of this line still around, but inactive in Tewksbury.

The South Reading branch from Peabody to Reading. The western, Reading/Wakefield end is now closed. It served a gravel and cement company for quite some time, but Guilford didn't want to serve them, and the company went to trucks. The middle was ripped up in the mid-1940s when Route 128 was turned from a back road to a highway. This is now I-95 in parts today. When you drive south from Peabody to Waltham, there's a jog in the highway in Lynnfield. This is where the highway follows the former roadbed from the South Reading branch. The eastern end has fared a bit better. This line serves a big Eastman Kodak geletin plant. The line then continues west where it ends in an industrial park, which doesn't receive too much freight today. It's hard to believe that this branch was one double-track through its whole length. You can see this by the width of the ROW and where the tracks are still extant.

The Merrimac branch
The Amesbury branch

These two came up in the early 1980s and are both boring bike trails today. When I was growing up I remember seeing trains on them.

The more extensive lines to go:

Central Mass from Waltham to Hampton, MA
Hyannis to Provincetown
Framingham to Leominster
Framingham to Lowell
Bedford to Billerica
Enfield, Ct. to Springfield - to be possibly rebuilt, I think.

And the biggest of all with the biggest name:

The Worcester, Nashua, Rochester and Portland.
This line died in bits and pieces with a small portions left active in Nashua, Worcester to Ayre, and around Portland, ME. The line was once the route of the big tourist trains that ran in multiple sections off of the New Haven (Providence and Worcester) all the way to Portland Maine with connections to the White Mountains. The line was abandoned due to its out of the way traverse, sharp curves, and rolling grade.

Portland Maine to St Johnsbury VT, and Sandown to Conway, NH. The MEC White Mountain Division, and B&M White Mountain branch respectively. These were closed during the 1970s and later the 1980s by the B&M and Guiford. The good news is they are both on the consideration for reopening for passenger service.

Augusta Maine Low Road. Closed by Guiford just because, and now owned by the state of Maine. Possibly to be reopened when the time permits.

John

I've been working on the Frisco Highline Route. It runs from Kansas City, Mo. to Springfield, Mo. through Southwest Mo.

I've been working on it for about 8 months now. I should be starting a thread and posting some screenshots soon.

http://www.friscohighlinetrail.org/history.html



[FONT=&quot]From the Bias magazine May 25, 1954, page 12.

Last Run. Long time ago, Frisco tradition has it, an impatient traveler (Kansas City to Springfield) on a hot summer day grew weary of the frequent stopping of a friendly little train. Dismounting at the station here, he observed to one of the crew that the line he'd just travelled was "high, dry and dusty" and that moment, the "High Line" received its name.
Actually, the name never had been particularly appropriate, for the High Line traverses some of the wettest country in these parts when rains are normal. Frisco old-timers tell of an engineer who ran his engine through water so deep his engine's fire was extinguished. He drifted to higher ground, rekindled the fire with brush from the adjoining woods. And there's another story of an engineer who piloted his train over the softened roadbed and as the last car crept over the danger spot, ties and rails disappeared in the mud.
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]However inappropriate, "High Line" became the name of the friendly little train and High Line it is called today, as it approaches its last run to be made into Springfield this Thursday and back to Kansas City on Friday morning.
There is considerable grief over the passing away of the High Line in the 30 towns (some of them little and some quite sizeable) where it has stopped each day the past half century and more. The High Line afforded the only rail transportation directly from Springfield to Clinton to Kansas City and back (the trip up is made one day, back home the next). Passenger service on the High Line is being disontinued entirely as unprofitable. Freight service will be afforded on a tri-weekly basis, with daily service out of Clinton through the busy chick-shipping season.
Among Frisco men who've worked on the High Line, its discontinuance evokes reminiscence and considerable sentiment. The High Line in recent years has become a convenient run and a relatively safe one, rather a prized position, in fact and those who obtained work on it surrendered seniority claims on other lines of the road. Consequently, its crews stayed together a long time.
For instance, Engineer Chess B. Staples has worked on the line for 46 years, 34 of them as engineer. Conductor O.W. Blumhost and Brakeman J. F. Newberry have been with the line many many years. Fireman V.A. Meierotto for a considerable time also.
The crew of course will be broken up when the High Line is discontinued. Mr. Staples assumed they'd continue on the curtailed freight run for a time, didn't know to what work they'd be assigned later.
In older days, before highways were so good and cars so numerous, the High Line was a favored means of transportation for traveling salesmen -- "drummers" we called them. And freight business once was so heavy on the line that 12 hours or more would be required for the run from Clinton to Springfield. Crews sometimes would be caught by the "hog law" as railroad men call it, the requirement that no crew operate a train for more than 16 hours without relief. Conductor Frank Pierpont, now retired, recalls a trip when the crew was stopped by that law at Willard and he and Luther Elsie waked on in to Springfield.
Good highways, bus and truck transportation, increased travel by private car, all have combined to lessen the business of the High Line. Springfield, perhaps, will not be too greatly inconvenienced by its discontinuance of passenger service, since those traveling by rail to Kansas City can go by way of Fort Scott. But the High Line always has carried a good many passengers coming into Springfield from Oregon, Washington, Idaho, California and other western states and those travelers, in the future, may face an all-day wait before making a connection to Springfield. Many of the towns along the route will be without railroad passenger service entirely. Among the High Line's 30 stops were Walnut Grove, Bolivar, Osceola, Harrisonville and Centropolis.
The High Line has seen its share of wrecks and tragedy. On treacherous Weaubleau hill, Dan Lyons, grandfather of Steve Schneider, and his crew were killed. Joe Harris, father of Paul Harris, was killed in a collision on the line. Charlie Waits, father of the late Bert Waits, is another well remembered railroader who met death on the line.
But the High Line saw its good times too, times of appreciated service and friendly greetings from those who used it regularly and good fellowship between crew, station men along the line and passengers too. True, the High Line was a slow train but it travelled in daylight and newcomers to this country from the West often expressed their pleasure with the sight seeing advantages of the little train. But nobody appears to have much time for sight seeing anymore. They must get where they're going as rapidly as possible although they are not always sure just why. The High Line surrenders to what some folks call Progress. She does not go unmourned.[/FONT]

The Homestake Pass line in Montana (random dates)









-enginewhistle

courtesy of:
http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/showgallery.php/cat/909/page/1

Theres an old quarry spur about a quarter mile from the Bernardsville Station. The yard was ripped up years ago for these storage areas. The embankment, and the switch to the quarry, still remain. The last freight train thru here ran in 2002, but maintinence equipment still is stored on embankment.

Even if freight trains still ran there, people would be bickering, and then B-ville would be a quiet zone.

NJT should rebuild the yard for Hoboken-Bernardsville Diesel Runs.

Tennessee Pass out of Pueblo, Colorado to Glenwood Springs.

The last remaining 10,000 foot Class 1 Railroad Pass left in the United States.

Abandoned, but left intact because the ICC would not let the UP tear it up. Last regular train was in 1997, and the pass has sat almost untouched since then.

Its also my back yard, I have camped near Tennessee Pass my whole life, and while the Royal Gorge is already a tourist line, there are plenty of other places along the route that could be a tourist line, like the Gorge outside of Buena Vista

Abandoned railroad lines? does that apply to abandoned railway lines?
Just checked wikipedia and in greece there is:


Kavasila – Vartholomio – Kyllini

I know that the Middlewood way near where I live follows the route of the former Macclesfield, Bollington and Marple Railway. The links below should give information on it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macclesfield,_Bollington_and_Marple_railway
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middlewood_Way

Steamdemon said:

does that apply to abandoned railway lines?

Click to expand...

Yes it does. :hehe:

Well, in Colorado, there are lots of abandoned railroads.
Here is a large number of the major ones.
1. Argentine Central, ran to from Silver Plume to Waldorf and to the top of Mt. McClellan, was later renamed the Argentine and Grey's Peak. Abandoned in 1918, tracks removed in 1920. Narrow Gauge
2. Book Cliff Railroad (I think this is the Mule Tram) Abandoned in th 1910's or 20's (I think). NG
3. Colorado Midland RR, Abandoned in the 1920's. Standard Gauge
4. Rock Island, Abandoned in the 1980's. SG
5. Colorado Central (Later became part of the C&S) Can ride over portion of this line on the Georgetown Loop. Abandoned in the 1930's. NG
6. Midland Terminal, Abandoned 1949. SG
7. Gilpin Tramway, Abandoned in 1917 (There is a Gilpin Shay for Trainz). NG
8. Colorado & Southern (Narrow Gauge Portions), Abandoned from the 1920's to the 1940's. NG
9. Colorado Springs & Cripple Creek District Railway, Abandoned in 1920. NG
10. Laramie, North Park & Western (Line later bought by the Wyoming Colorado Railroad), Abandoned in 1987. SG
11. Denver & Inter-Mountain Railroad, Abandoned 1953. SG
12. Denver, Leadville & Gunnison (Bought the DSP&PRR in 1889), Abandoned in the 1930's to 40's. NG
13. Denver & Salt Lake (Formerly Known as the Denver, Northwestern & Pacific Railway), Rollins Pass Line Abandoned after the opening of the Moffat Tunnel in 1928. SG
14. Denver & Rio Grande Western, (Narrow Gauge and some Standard). Large majority of the narrow gauge abandoned in the 1950's. Standard: Tennessee Pass line closed in 1997, Glenwood Springs to Aspen, Abandoned in the 1980's. NG & SG
15. Denver, South Park and Pacific, Abandoned in the 1930's. NG
16. Crystal River Railroad, Abandoned in the 1940's. SG
17. Florence & Cripple Creek, Abandoned in the 1920's. NG
18. Georgetown, Breckenridge and Leadville (Later to be one of the Georgetown Loops many formal names), Abandoned in 1939. NG
19. Silverton Railroad (Rainbow Road), Abandoned in 1926. NG
20. Rio Grande Southern, Abandoned in 1951. NG
21. Silverton, Gladstone & Northerly, Abandoned between 1938 and 1942. NG
22. Silverton Northern Railroad, Abandoned in 1942. NG
23. Southern San Luis Valley Railroad, Abandoned in 1957. Some track remains and is being rebuilt by the San Luis and Rio Grande (Rio Grande Scenic). SG
24. Uintah Railway, Abandoned in 1939. (Mallet 51 is also in Trainz). NG
25. Various Trolley and Electric Traction Lines. (Such as the South Denver Cable Railway and Denver Tramway) (The former Trolley House of the former is now used as an Old Spaghetti Factory and the latter's powerhouse is now an REI). SG
26. Various UP Lines. SG
27. Various BNSF Lines. SG
There is still lots of evidence of the right of ways of many of these railroads found throughout colorado, whether it be bridges, fills or ROWs. Some are open for tours and some have become dirt roads open to the public.

The one abandoned line i haven't mentionaed that isn't well known at all?? That'd be the branch line running from Laurel to Red Lodge, Montana. The tracks actually started at Silesia (south of laurel about 10 or 20 miles. Don't know exactly) off the ex CB&Q line to Denver. NP used the line along with the BN. A cannery and a coal mine were up there back in the NP days along with a depot that still stands today. Some old R.O.W. remains along Highway 212 with some old bridge pilings still in the creek also by the highway.

The Elk Park Pass line used to go from Butte to Helena, Montana which was run by the GN and BN. BN abandoned the line 2 years after the merger and now all that remains is several bridge pieces, a tunnel, and a trestle. The tracks only go from Helena to Montana City and end there. MRL runs that part of the line today.

how about the greatest railroad on stilts, camas prairie.:hehe:

wilh said:

18. Georgetown, Breckenridge and Leadville (Later to be one of the

Click to expand...

Technically not abandoned anymore

There are masses of abondoned lines and stations in and around London, both over and underground.

Take a look at this fantastic site, especially if you like pictures of urban dereliction too. Might be most appealling to UK trainzers but there are enough sections covered to keep anyone interested for an hour or two.
http://www.abandonedstations.org.uk/

This is just a part of one of the routes covered.

http://www.abandonedstations.org.uk/North_Woolwich_line_5.html

Here's a site with abandoned and broken up routes in Belgium, Germany and Holland. Sometimes I wish that they were still in use or saved for preservation.
It's always sad to see an overgrown railway. Thinking about all the people that ever used it, all the engines that passed, it's history and people that ran the line... The railways used to be magical. They still are, but not in the same way anymore

http://www.xerbutri.nl/verdwenen.php?lang=20

Joapie said:

Here's a site with abandoned and broken up routes in Belgium, Germany and Holland. Sometimes I wish that they were still in use or saved for preservation.
It's always sad to see an overgrown railway. Thinking about all the people that ever used it, all the engines that passed, it's history and people that ran the line... The railways used to be magical. They still are, but not in the same way anymore

http://www.xerbutri.nl/verdwenen.php?lang=20

Click to expand...

I think the same thing when I see an abandoned route. I also think of all the work that went into making the line, and workers who lost their lives in the process. Building railroads back in the old times was not a very safe occupation, and many people died in the process.

John

Klinger said:

Tennessee Pass out of Pueblo, Colorado to Glenwood Springs.

The last remaining 10,000 foot Class 1 Railroad Pass left in the United States.

Abandoned, but left intact because the ICC would not let the UP tear it up. Last regular train was in 1997, and the pass has sat almost untouched since then.

Its also my back yard, I have camped near Tennessee Pass my whole life, and while the Royal Gorge is already a tourist line, there are plenty of other places along the route that could be a tourist line, like the Gorge outside of Buena Vista

Click to expand...

Hopefully the evil army of Rails to Trails won't attack it and name it Butterfly Scenic Trail.