Badly Maintained Track
- Thread starter boyerm25
- Start date
Not as bad as this ENTIRE railroad (see this video). (It's called the Maumee & Western Railroad). They were literally deemed "World's Worst Maintained Railroad". They were recently bought by by Peoria, Illinois-based Pioneer Railcorp's subsidary, the Michigan Southern Railroad. They do intend to revive the line and it's jagged rails mainly due to the large customer base on the line. (See this article).
cascaderailroad
New member
So I suppose these railroads recruit trainmen exclusively from the Knievel family? How do they find employees willing to risk their lives on this kind of a railroad. It would be incoherent to believe that if their track, the basis for their railroad, is this bad, the rest of their safety and other systems would be any better.
Bernie
Bernie
The telephoto lenses used make it look much worse than it is.
The speeds they operate at are slow and safe.
If they do fall in the dirt, they don't go very far.
It's called fit for purpose.
The freight could go by truck if you prefer.
This is good news. I posted comments on this line before. Guilford Transportation (Pan Am Railways) did this to their branch lines to deliberately discourage service. Once the lines developed washouts, they used that to abandon them.
John
magickmaker
New member
In the case of this railroad, it's more a cost cutting measure. In fact, it's something that the PRR used to do. I think Conrail did it as well, but I'm not sure there. In any case, the idea was the railroad wouldn't fix ANYTHING so long as it still worked. So track was left alone as long as trains didn't derail. Didn't matter how shoddy it was, if the train didn't derail, it was good and dandy.
cascaderailroad
New member
Why did the chicken cross the tracks ? Because they are schtoopid chickens !
See Min 3:30 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiQ1LDDUm6I
See Min 3:30 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiQ1LDDUm6I
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You can see it on the CSX Brunswick line (Old Metro Line heading North out of DC) there's still a lot of heavy CSX freight and MARC uses it for commuters out to Fredricksberg. Ties that are rotted out, trees encroaching on the tracks and spikes an inch or two above the tie surface. There was bad derail at Takoma Station back in 1987. I guess it'll take something like that for CSX to fix those tracks again. http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=75&t=65716&start=15
In Latvia the same happened. In the case of one line it was also a washout which was used to abandon the line. But the washout didn't even disturb any train services... Another line was closed in 2008 due to an accident where a lorry crashed into the only train that ran on the line - a 1997 built 70 seat railbus. They didn't put any other passenger train on the line and just complained to the people that the railbus was broken an lied about 25km/h speed restrictions on the line (Actually it was mostly 60km/h). The line was dismantled in 2009 with the railbus being fixed soon afterwards, now running on departmental duties
The old timetable still stands in the window of the terminus station with an angel of hope...Picture
This spring there was a massive washout due to annual flooding on a grade 3 line here, but that was surprisingly fixed.
Before
After
Strangely 3 lines have been closed due to neighboring Lithuania being too greedy. They closed the ones on their side so to make longer journeys on their tracks.
Picture
The 100 km/h speed limit sign still survives from the closure.
In Latvia the same happened. In the case of one line it was also a washout which was used to abandon the line. But the washout didn't even disturb any train services... Another line was closed in 2008 due to an accident where a lorry crashed into the only train that ran on the line - a 1997 built 70 seat railbus. They didn't put any other passenger train on the line and just complained to the people that the railbus was broken an lied about 25km/h speed restrictions on the line (Actually it was mostly 60km/h). The line was dismantled in 2009 with the railbus being fixed soon afterwards, now running on departmental duties
Picture
This spring there was a massive washout due to annual flooding on a grade 3 line here, but that was surprisingly fixed.
Before
After
Strangely 3 lines have been closed due to neighboring Lithuania being too greedy. They closed the ones on their side so to make longer journeys on their tracks.
Picture
The 100 km/h speed limit sign still survives from the closure.
This sounds just like Guilford. The two companies must be run by the same people!
In the 1980s they embargoed (closed) the Mountain Division of the former Maine Central. This used to be the main line from Portland Maine to St. Johnsbury Vermont. The line crossed through the White Mountains then on to Vermont on the other side. It was a tough line, but unlike those in the western USA and other regions of the US, the grades were not as tough. They closed the line not because of the grades, but because they created a through route from Maine to New York State and bypassed Vermont. The in between towns wanted rail service and the company refused. Eventually the states purchased the ROW, but Guilford refused to sell one small segment (1.6 km) in the middle of the route somewhere to prevent anyone from operation the line as a through line. There are bits and pieces of it operated on either end, and there are hints of restoring some service. The tracks are in place along with crossings, signals, mileposts, and bridges, however, the weeds are 3 feet high in places and trees are growing out of the tracks in places.
What is interesting about this company is they pay very little for track maintenance. Where I live in Massachusetts, we pay for the track maintenance through the local transit company which now owns all the ROW except for some less used lines and those in western Mass, and Amtrak takes care of the Maintenance from the Mass/New Hampshire border to Portland. At one point the lack of maintenance on these outer lines caused slow orders so bad that the freight trains would outlaw, meaning the crew would use up their hours of service, and the train would have to go off service. This tied up the mainline substantially. It would take about 16 hours to travel the 450 miles of the mainline! About 5 years ago Norfolk Southern teamed up with Guilford (Pan AM Railways) to form Pan Am Southern. Pan Am runs the trains and NS pays for the maintenance. With this service, the mainline was rebuilt from Rotterdam Jct. (Near Albany, NY) to Ayer, MA. We hope and wish that some day Pan Am would sell off their lines and NS would buy them. That would ensure decent service once again and restore the ROW to the best condition it could be.
John
That's about 28 mph, yes? Here there was one line (not a mainline, though) on which the passenger train had an average speed of EIGHT mph. That was in it's last years of operation. I know that in the Soviet times that train acted also as a traveling shop for locals so it stood long at stops, but I'm not sure if it was in it's last years of operation... Might be down just to the state of the tracks...
And I just found out that one of our two remaining abandoned lines was dismantled last year. So now we have one abandoned line with tracks in situ not connected to any other lines, one 40 mile long 60 mph mainline with absolutely no rail traffic of any kind and regularity (but not abandoned) and 180 meters of brand new tracks on a dismantled line that will never be reopened... Forget logic - it's Latvia!
If you need work and for some reason can't find anything else that's where you / I have worked.:'(
Gerry
IE: A none union rail container yard contracted by BNSF. Many years ago.
Just one more comment :No problem if you pay off the inspector.