I was hoping to find a house somewhere close to the tracks. (large images alert)

JimDep

Well-known member
A little over a year ago I wanted to find a house somewhere out in the country a little bit, but not too far from the tracks. Normally, to get inspiration to work on my route, I'd need to drive somewhere. Not anymore.

The 1st pic shows the front of the house on the left and tracks on the right.

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Nawww ... Closer ... Ya' have to buy a house on a curve (like a train station), where when a train is coming, it lights up the windows, like it's coming right at ya', and shakes the rafters like an earthquake ... And right next to loud clanging RR crossing gates would be a plus ... Clang, Clang, Clang, Clang, Clang, WAAAA, WAAAA, WAAAA, WAAAA, WAAAA
 
Personally I'd like to live in one of these houses. It's right next to the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum's mainline. This means I don't have to worry about trains going by 24/7/365, and I get to see Southern 4501, Southern 630, soon Tennessee Valley (Railroad Museum 2-8-0) 610, and the vintage diesels. The shops at East Chattanooga is just past the bridge, which is marked by the sign. The only negative about it is that Missionary Ridge Tunnel is just around the curve the opposite direction, so the trains have to blow their whistle/horn as they approach it. Plus, if I ever volunteer there, I don't have to drive there; I can just walk the tracks to East Chattanooga. Plus, is I ever become a conductor, I can just have the train stop off in front of my house and pick me up on their way to the other end of the line at Grand Junction instead of having to walk to East Chattanooga to get on the train.
Google street view of the houses: https://www.google.com/maps/@35.0645626,-85.2464846,3a,75y,221.97h,94.71t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1se0hwQBYYy6VRUplV-y7_7g!2e0!7i3328!8i1664
 
hahaha..... The trains only go out and come back once a day....sometimes 2x. They blow the horn a 1/2 mile down where the crossing is. On a nice day when I'm out front, just like a little kid I can coax the engineer's to blown the horn in front of the house.
 
I just clicked the Google Earth map. Very nice, not much different looking than this area. I like that turntable down the tracks !
 
I used to live at the end of a cul-de-sac and was just slightly further away from rails... Sadly, though I loved noticing the train going by (it was a short line, not a main - Carolina Coastal Railroad) I didn't pay much serious attention to it other than enjoying the sounds and sights. I've now moved and my rail interest has grown. I'd love to have rails behind the house now.. good for you!
 
Every once in a while there is an absolutely earthshaking KaBoom earthquake, and there have been several derailments on the line near my house ... I don't know what these guys are doing down there ... but I am glad that I am pretty far away from the tracks ... as we would have to evacuate, or be seriously kilt' if there was ever a LacMagantic catastrophic derailment
 
hahaha..... The trains only go out and come back once a day....sometimes 2x. They blow the horn a 1/2 mile down where the crossing is. On a nice day when I'm out front, just like a little kid I can coax the engineer's to blown the horn in front of the house.

Their bread and butter is the Missionary Ridge Local, which is a 6-mile round trip (3 miles each way) between Grand Junction, which is where all trains depart hence all times on their website is for when the trains depart Grand Junction, and East Chattanooga, which is beyond the bridge. They run this train every month of the year, run 2-5 trains a day, though not every day of the week all year long, sometimes weekends only (like January-February), though most of the time on either select weekdays or every day of the week. In fact every train the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum runs passes by those houses. Plus they keep their locomotives, the cars and locomotive being used for the Local, their shops, and they fuel all their locomotives at East Chattanooga, so trains also run by at other times of the day, normally before the first train of the day and after the last train of the day. Except for the Local, all the equipment for their other trains are kept at the yard at Grand Junction. If you care to see what trains they run, check their website: https://www.tvrail.com/
 
Their bread and butter is the Missionary Ridge Local, which is a 6-mile round trip (3 miles each way) between Grand Junction, which is where all trains depart hence all times on their website is for when the trains depart Grand Junction, and East Chattanooga, which is beyond the bridge. They run this train every month of the year, run 2-5 trains a day, though not every day of the week all year long, sometimes weekends only (like January-February), though most of the time on either select weekdays or every day of the week. In fact every train the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum runs passes by those houses. Plus they keep their locomotives, the cars and locomotive being used for the Local, their shops, and they fuel all their locomotives at East Chattanooga, so trains also run by at other times of the day, normally before the first train of the day and after the last train of the day. Except for the Local, all the equipment for their other trains are kept at the yard at Grand Junction. If you care to see what trains they run, check their website: https://www.tvrail.com/
Wife and I stayed in an old boxcar in Chattanooga overnight a few years back (They had a bunch for people to stay in) and rode a Tennessee Valley Rail dinner train which is the one I believe you mention 3 miles out ad 3 miles back. Had a great time.
 
Wife and I stayed in an old boxcar in Chattanooga overnight a few years back (They had a bunch for people to stay in) and rode a Tennessee Valley Rail dinner train which is the one I believe you mention 3 miles out ad 3 miles back. Had a great time.

Only cars that I know of that you can stay in are the passenger cars at the Chattanooga Choo-Choo.
 
Every once in a while there is an absolutely earthshaking KaBoom earthquake, and there have been several derailments on the line near my house ... I don't know what these guys are doing down there ... but I am glad that I am pretty far away from the tracks ... as we would have to evacuate, or be seriously kilt' if there was ever a LacMagantic catastrophic derailment

Oh THANKS !!! Just what I wanted to hear ....HAHAHAHAHAHA ! I'm glad my wife didn't read this before signing the papers.
 
Their bread and butter is the Missionary Ridge Local, which is a 6-mile round trip (3 miles each way) between Grand Junction, which is where all trains depart hence all times on their website is for when the trains depart Grand Junction, and East Chattanooga, which is beyond the bridge. They run this train every month of the year, run 2-5 trains a day, though not every day of the week all year long, sometimes weekends only (like January-February), though most of the time on either select weekdays or every day of the week. In fact every train the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum runs passes by those houses. Plus they keep their locomotives, the cars and locomotive being used for the Local, their shops, and they fuel all their locomotives at East Chattanooga, so trains also run by at other times of the day, normally before the first train of the day and after the last train of the day. Except for the Local, all the equipment for their other trains are kept at the yard at Grand Junction. If you care to see what trains they run, check their website: https://www.tvrail.com/

Thanks, I'll check it out. That's a nice part of the country. My wife is not enjoying our 2nd winter here ....minus 6 was our high a couple days ago....so we might sell the place and head south to where it doesn't get quite this cold. I will miss those tracks though.
 
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I used to live at the end of a cul-de-sac and was just slightly further away from rails... Sadly, though I loved noticing the train going by (it was a short line, not a main - Carolina Coastal Railroad) I didn't pay much serious attention to it other than enjoying the sounds and sights. I've now moved and my rail interest has grown. I'd love to have rails behind the house now.. good for you!

Thanks, I really like being this close to the tracks. If it was really busy and they leaned on their horns in front of the place, that would be a different story. I wouldn't be too wild about living close to a rail yard only because of the noise going 24 hours a day, like the North Yard used to be Colorado, where I lived before.
Not too far from here is the yard in Olean, NY, but far enough away that I don't hear it. Olean showed up in a couple scenes in " UNSTOPPABLE".

"Take me right back to the track, Jack".
 
When we were looking for a house when we first moved up here twenty years ago, we looked at this house. If you turn to the right to face the end of the road, just beyond the row of shrubbery is Norfolk Southern's Atlanta-Chattanooga mainline. I was only eight years old at the time and I was like "BUY THIS HOUSE! I WANT THIS HOUSE!" Now that I look back on it, having long freight trains traveling by at 40 miles per hour 24/7/365 would be hard to live with, particularly with going to bed and sleeping thru the night. If I was to pick a freight railroad, it'd be the Chattanooga and Chickamauga, a shortline that runs from its' namesake town, Chattanooga, thru Chickamauga, and on down south just past Summerville, Georgia. I wouldn't have trains running by the house 24 hours a day, and they'd be short freight trains going by at 25 miles per hour would be more manageable. Also, the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum's excursions into northern Georgia, the 7-hour diesel-powered, Grand Junction-Chickamauga Chickamauga Turn, and the 9-hour Grand Junction-Summerville Summerville Steam Special, usually pulled by Southern 4501, use the Chattanooga and Chickamauga on those excursions. I'd prefer a house between Chattanooga and Chickamauga as I could see both the Chickamauga Turn and Summerville Steam Special. The Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum and me have a long history. It was where my love of trains began all the way back when I was two years old in 1992 and since we've moved to our current residence in 1998, I've been going up there at least once a year, though it's become more and more often more recently. That's because those Goodwill thrift stores have a special sale on the 1st Saturday of the month, and my mom always goes to them. So whenever the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum is running one of their steam locomotives on the weekends, which'll start in March, I'd ride up there with her, and then she'd drop me off at the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum and I'll ride the Missionary Ridge Local a few times while she goes shopping. It's a win-win for both of us: She gets to go shopping without me and I get to go to the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum and ride the train.
Anyway, the house we looked at back in 1998: https://www.google.com/maps/@34.8892418,-84.9763111,3a,75y,70.3h,87.99t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sXBUkC0YqhCujiweDHaZpkQ!2e0!7i3328!8i1664
 
Wow, Jordon ..I really like that...the house, the scenery, location....that's great ! What a nice spread. I might have to look at houses in that area.

That trip to the RR museum sounds like a blast. I'd be like your mom too, hitting those Goodwill Store sales. That's where I picked up the book "Clear the Tracks" by engineer Joe Bromely, based on his life experiences with the Railroads from the late 1800's. He started as a "call boy" at age 16 in Utica, NY , then to a fireman, then to a full time engineer at about age 20 ! The duties of a call boy was to walk around the neighborhoods from 6pm to 6am and inform the engineers and conductors everyday when their next trip was. That was the funniest and most educational books about old time railroading and society from that time period I've ever read. It was written in 1943, when he was close to 80 years old. I have to blame that book for getting me interested in looking at houses in upstate NY. They could really use passenger service around here....no where to be found anymore unless you go up to Buffalo. The tracks in front of this place were originally the Erie Railroad...at least that's what it says on the house title.

The speed limit is 20 on that stretch in front of my house. You can really tell when they've either got a full load or a string of empites. The title of this house and property goes back to 1852, although the house was rebuilt in 1935. I was told they made their own wine here, which might explain all the berry buses and grape vine trellises. There's a spiral stairway that goes down to the old river rock basement. We found old stuff down here, tons of canning jars, very old tools, an unopened bottle of "Breck" Shampoo from the 70's , cans of livestock oil, antique sheep sheers, cases of empty winebottles that were never used etc....lots of weird stuff. ...your mom would probably enjoy rummaging through all this : )
 
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